


Human Givens

by Lilyliegh



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS
Genre: Alternate Universe - Childhood Friends, Alternative Take on the Lost Incident, Angst with a Happy Ending, Domestic Fluff, Escape, Eventual Happy Ending, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Gen, Healing, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Kusanagi Becomes a Parental Guardian, POV Alternating, Yuusaku and Ryouken as Childhood Friends, it's got its fair share of angst but this is a wholesome story all right, lots of fluffy feels
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-07
Updated: 2019-06-03
Packaged: 2019-10-06 09:12:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 83,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17342594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lilyliegh/pseuds/Lilyliegh
Summary: Human givens (n):a set of broad, interlinked emotional needs that humans must possess in order to remain physically and emotionally healthy.Without even fully comprehending the scale of his father's "work" on the Lost Incident, Ryouken runs away with Yuusaku in tow, stumbling upon an unlikely, albeit kindhearted, saviour in a silver hotdog truck. But escaping his father's project is only the beginning—returning to life in Den City will take not just a single act of goodwill but a serious undertaking of care, comfort, and love.





	1. ONE

**Author's Note:**

> a new project, just a week after "D" too! i've been buzzing to share this new project with you guys, and i hope you'll enjoy it! please note this is a genfic (no romantic pairings) and will include topics of childhood physical and emotional abuse. ultimately though, this is an uplifting fic about hope, comfort, and love, so rest assured there is an up to every down. also while this fic does draw on aspects of the Lost Incident, there will not be other appearances of Lost Children besides Yuusaku. instead, they'll be appearing as other characters down the road.
> 
> this fic will update every Monday!  
> i hope you enjoy!

"I'll be back soon," his father said, patting him on the head. "Be a good boy today and study lots. I'll come back after my meeting, and I hope you'll have completed your studies by then."

Ryouken bounced his head up and down, throat thick. He forced a watery smile onto his lips.

"And eat," his father said. "You hardly touched your breakfast this morning, and with winter approaching, I don't want you catching a cold."

"... I won't," Ryouken said, forcing his voice to remain calm and even. His small hands clenched into fists at his side. Food sounded like the least appetising thing in the world right now. He doubt he could stomach a bite of toast, much less the eggs and cheese his father had made for him. His stomach only hurt more when he saw his father's stern face flash with uneasiness, and a hand settled in Ryouken's hair once more.

"Take care, son. I'll see you later."

"See you," Ryouken said, and closed the door behind his father. As soon as he heard the click of the lock, and the jingle of his father pocketing his keys, Ryouken slipped down to the floor. With one ear pressed to the door, he listened for the rev of the car engine—his father was off to an important business meeting in the city. Were it any other day, Ryouken would have told his father just how smart he looked, and maybe even asked who else would be at the meeting. His father had never been shy about sharing his business work with him.

His stomach ached once more.

The car engine faded away, and the house delved into painful silence. Ryouken counted under his breath to one hundred, just in case his father returned because he forgot his briefcase, before he pushed himself off the ground.

He had no time to waste. Today was the day.

Hurriedly, he dashed down the hallway, slippery socks tripping even over the plush carpet of the living room. His house was large, with many rooms and corridors on the top floor. However, Ryouken's hands found the doorknob to the laboratory: his father's private work space in the basement where he conducted various experiments. Ryouken had never been in the basement before, but yesterday he watched his father press the combo for the lock.

The door swung open on well-oiled hinges, revealing a staircase down to the lower levels of the house. His father's house was built on a mountain; until recently, Ryouken had never known there were even rooms cut into the mountainside, or that his father had been conducting private work down here. Here, the air tasted fouler, as if a machine produced the oxygen rather than the clean air from his balcony window. He coughed at the first breath, pulling his shirt collar up over his nose and mouth. Then he descended down the staircase, one step at a time. The air became more artificial the further he descended, and he kept on coughing, muffling the noise into his sleeves and collar.

At the bottom, he found another hallway. Unlike the halls in his house, this place was made of steel and stone, warped together like a mad scientist stitched an abomination. In places, Ryouken saw thick, metal plates bolted into the ground, walls, and ceiling; and in other areas, sharp stone poked out from the walls. Harsh, artificial light lined the corridor. Ryouken wished he  _ couldn't  _ see just how sterile this place was.

But he had no time to dawdle.

He hurried down the hallway, peeking into doors and rooms. Most of the rooms were offices piled high with paperwork; his father had never trusted computers with his personal documents. Where there were computers, they were turned off. Ryouken shivered at the sight of the single room with a camera feed.

At the end of the hallway, he found a single door, steel instead of wooden, and appearing bolted into the wall. Had he run down the corridor, he never would have seen the opening. There was no handle, but when Ryouken pressed his hand to it, the door swung neatly open. No password, no riddles, no secret passage. He held the door open with his foot and gazed into the room.

There, squished into the corner of the room, was a boy his age, or maybe a couple years younger. Ryouken didn’t know much about him, but what he did know was that his father has done something horrible to this boy, something that he had never told Ryouken when he had said to him, two months ago, "Buy that boy some candy."

Nowadays, Ryouken would probably have bought that boy an entire buffet's worth of food. He folded into the shadows of the room, thin and pale and no bigger than a box of cereal. Knees tucked up to his chest, Ryouken couldn’t see his eyes or face. The boy hadn't even dared to look up, no doubt scared of ... of whatever the Lost Incident was.

"... hey," Ryouken said. "We have to go."

He saw the boy shiver, but his head didn't rise.

"Hey," Ryouken said again, this time more firmly. "Come on."

Again, no movement.

Carefully, Ryouken slipped off one of his shoes and shoved it between the door frame. He padde across the room, one foot making gentle taps on the cold tile, and the other slapping the surface like an angry beast. No matter how quietly he walked, the boy still shivered and drew himself closer, refusing to even look up. As Ryouken approached, he noticed the boy was wearing the same outfit he was when Ryouken first saw him: he remembered only because he liked the boy's warm, fuzzy jacket, as that day he himself had worn only a long-sleeve shirt. He had been shivering back then, and this boy had tried to give him his jacket.

Now, Ryouken wished he had a jacket to give  _ him.  _ The boy's shivering hadn't stopped, only growing more agitated the closer Ryouken had drawn.

"Yu ... Yuusaku."

Yuusaku froze.

"Count to three, and then let's go."

Yuusaku shook his head, drawing further into himself. A soft sob hitched in his chest, and Ryouken himself felt his heart tighten. How—how could he get Yuusaku out? They couldn't be here—neither of them should have been here, and if his father got home and found out what Ryouken had done, they would be—they would be in trouble. 

Weakly, Yuusaku stretched out a hand—not far, his fingers twitching and his entire body convulsing with the force of his tremors. Ryouken snatched up the hand, pulling Yuusaku up with him. Whatever had happened down here had weakened him: Ryouken remembered seeing Yuusaku and his bright, smiling face as he told him all about his favourite game, Duel Monsters, and his friends who all played it at school with him. He had been like a bright star on that day. Now, he looked like a dying sun in a swallowed-up galaxy.

Ryouken squeezed Yuusaku's hand once and then gave him a pull. To his surprise, Yuusaku stepped with him on shivery legs.

"Let's go," Ryouken said once more, and then he ran. He didn't dare look back at the room, or at the basement. Footsteps, either his or Yuusaku's, echoed in his ringing ears as they tore up the room, down the hallway, through doorway after doorway until proper sunlight pierced his eyes. Behind him, Yuusaku gave a weak gasp and then a breathy sob, but Ryouken kept on running. He yanked Yuusaku down the porch and behind the rhododendron bush in his front yard. Pink petals brushed their flushed cheeks. The petals even matched Yuusaku's hair which, outgrown, hung droopily in front of his face.

Watery, green eyes peered at him. Throughout the mad run out the door, Yuusaku had never said a word. He still held his tongue, white peeth pinched over the torn skin of his lip.

"Count to three," Ryouken said again, "and then we run down that hill."

Yuusaku sniffled, rubbing a hand over his eyes.

"One, two, three—"

He yanked Yuusaku by the hand once more, and this time they bolted down the hill. With his house high in the mountains, it was otherwise be impossible to get down to the city without being spotted. However, his father had tended to their property well: a firm hedge lined the roadway, and behind it was an opening just wide enough for him and Yuusaku to pass through. Ryouken had to hold his head down so that his white hair didn’t peek over the top of the hedge, but Yuusaku, small and brittle, only had to run.

Each noise he heard, each crackle and roar and thump, sent his heart leaping into his chest. His father shouldn't return home for another hour or two, and by that point he would be far away—

But what if he returned early?

What if he found Ryouken?

What would he and Yuusaku do?

He shook the worrying thoughts from his mind, though even tucked in the corners of his consciousness, they continued to plague him as he slowed to a halt at the end of the hedges. At the bottom of the hill was a small plaza of brown bricks inlaid with sparkling stones. Benches lined the plaza and looked out onto the beautiful sea stretching around the rocky coastline. He’d seen a similar sight from his house's balcony, and when his father had driven into town, Ryouken had come down this road. The sight looked  much different standing on his own two feet among the dozens of adults. Without his father's tall presence next to him, Ryouken feltt as small as a bug.

He squeezed Yuusaku's tiny hand. "Follow me."

Fortunately, they were dressed for the outside, albeit a bit coolly. Yuusaku's brown jacket cinched up to his quivering chin, but he still shivered in the autumn air. Ryouken had forgotten his own jacket, but his thick, long-sleeved shirt kept him from feeling frostbite on his skin. He kept his head down to avoid the stares of the adults around them, but to his pleasure, no one questioned them walking around the city. Pedestrians squeezed by them, and Ryouken tugged Yuusaku closer so that they wouldn’t be separated. He kept glancing back at Yuusaku, expecting him to dig his heels in and break down. Ryouken would have. But Yuusaku followed, eyes hollow, body heavy.

When he had planned to run away, he had only gotten to figuring out how to get out of the house—how to get Yuusaku away from his father. Now, Ryouken gazed around the city and wondered,  _ What now?  _ Where do they go? In television programs, heroes would go to the authorities for help, but if he did that, then the police would call his father, and he would get in trouble, and ...

No.

He needed to find a place for Yuusaku.

"Where—where's your family?" he asked.

Yuusaku blinked.

"Your family—or your friends. Anyone. Someone." 

No words.

Ryouken sighed. He pressed a hand to his stomach as it grumbled. Without eating breakfast this morning, he had never considered bringing food for them. Or money. The only belongings on his person were his wristwatch his father gave him and the clothing on his body.

No money, no food. He knew even that much. Sighing, Ryouken tugged Yuusaku down the road and deeper into the heart of the city. Even if they couldn’t purchase any food, they needed to find a place to hide. He considered going to a park, somewhere grassy and green where perhaps Yuusaku could feel more at peace, but with the current autumn temperature and Yuusaku's shivering, Ryouken decided against it. Instead, he took them to the library, a tall stone building that looked more like a courthouse. Giant pillars lined the front of the building, and inside, tall wooden shelves stretched from floor to ceiling. He padded across the rich, red carpet and to the back of the building where several tables and chairs were clustered in a studying areas. Once, he had come here with his father to check out some new books to read before bedtime.    
  
Gently, he unwound his fingers from Yuusaku's lethal grip. Yuusaku held his hand out, fingers flexing, before he settled back on the chair. His weary body hung forward, too tired to even sit upright and hold his head steady. A soft gurgle came from his stomach and he pressed a hand to his gut.   
  
Ryouken swallowed. How long had it been since Yuusaku last ate? Days?    
  
"Do you ... read?"   
  
Yuusaku said nothing.   
  
Ryouken sighed through his nose and headed to the nearest bookcase. He didn’t dare leave Yuusaku alone, not even for a couple moments, and so the books he chose didn’t even come from the children's section: encyclopedias and cartography books with detailed illustrations in them. The heavy books weighed down his feeble arms, and when he dropped them down on the table, the resulting thunk made Yuusaku leap out of his skin.   
  
Ryouken climbed up into the next seat. Even with his eight-year-old legs, he couldn’t touch the ground, and he kicked his feet back and forth as he perused several books. At his own house, he had a personal library filled with old, important, grown-up books. Sometimes, Ryouken would find his father in the study reading through these books. However, what he found wasn’t even all that interesting. The pictures were far and few, and though he was a skilled reader, he couldn’t understand most of the text.   
  
Across from him, Yuusaku moved but an inch. He sat stiffly in his seat, head bowed, hands folded in his lap. Even in the warm library, he looked cold and shivery. Glassy, green eyes blinked with unshed tears, and his bottom lips wobbled with each breath he took. He didn’t run, and Ryouken wondered whether he should count that as a blessing or a curse. Did Yuusaku think ... think he would do the same things as his father? Ryouken didn’t even know what his father did, but he knew that he would never, ever hurt Yuusaku. Never.   
  
With nowhere else to go, they stayed at the library until closing time. He looked through every book in their near proximity, and even once he had scanned them all, he looked through them again just to pass the time. Hunger ebbed at his stomach and he considered taking Yuusaku to a cafe. However, he would only raise suspicions. He couldn’t ask anyone for help. He couldn’t get caught.   
  
When the bell finally rang to signal the library closing, Ryouken put the books away and guided Yuusaku out of the library, once more taking his hand. Yuusaku's clammy hand shooks in his own, and once outside, he put up resistance, digging his heels in.   
  
"Yuusaku?"    
  
His eyes filled with tears, leaking down his pale cheeks. All the hurt he must have been holding in—all the pain and sorrow and grief—washed over him in one great wave, and Yuusaku's shoulders shook with held-in sobs. Ryouken felt his own heart clench in worry, and quickly he pulled Yuusaku to the side and wiped his tears away with his shirt sleeve.   
  
"Count to three, yes, just like that, start counting and then we'll go to the park."   
  
Yuusaku shook his head, biting down on his pink lip.   
  
"It'll be fine," Ryouken kept saying, nodding his head up and down. Anxiety prickled in his stomach. Maybe ... maybe he should have found someone to trust—an adult who wouldn’t send him back to his father, an adult who would take care of them and not send Yuusaku away. Would such an adult exist? He didn’t know. But if he said that to Yuusaku, he would only have to deal with Yuusaku's frantic cries. So Ryouken let Yuusaku cry for a few moments more, until he looked like he'd exhausted himself even further, and then he took his hand once more.   
  
"Come on," he said. "Count to three, and then let's go to the park."   
  
Yuusaku shook his head.   
  
A frown pulled on his lips. "What ... then where do you want to go?"

A fruitless question. Yuusaku should have no idea where he would want to go; he hadn’t been out of that room in two months, and at only six years of age, he wouldn't know the layout of Den City. Ryouken didn’t know of many places to travel either. The park seemed like the only safe place, but even then it wouldn’t put food in their bellies or pillows under their head. As a cold wind blew over the tips of his chilly ears, he realised that there was nowhere for them to go. No safe house. No one to trust. If they looked for help, they'd return to his father, and he and Yuusaku would be separated for all eternity.   
  
Never.   
  
He'd never let Yuusaku go, not again.   
  
He tugged Yuusaku forward, down more paved roadways and under bridges decorated in colourful graffiti. In the fading light, the shadows swept over their heads. Yuusaku kept his gaze tucked down, towed after Ryouken like a wagon. If he was tired or hungry or fed up, he said nothing. Ryouken held his own tongue steady.   
  
At the late hour, the park glowed with an unnatural, yellowish light that tinged the green leaves and silver benches unhealthy colours. They sat on the bench, cold seeping into their legs. Ryouken shivered deeper into his jacket and tucked his hands into his armpits. He had a plan—go to the park—but now? Where else could he go?   
  
Fortunately, no one else was at the park. People passed them by on their way home from the city, raising an eyebrow but saying no words. If he looked away, he could avoid their judgmental gazes. A single, silver truck sat across from them, but with its doors closed and its lights off, Ryouken hardly expected anyone to come out and greet them. Naturally, he was  surprised when a man did appear in a t-shirt and apron. Ryouken squinted in the dim light to read the title: Cafe Nagi.   
  
"Hey there," the man sayid, raising a hand. "The name's Kusanagi and, uh, is your parent around?"   
  
"Yes," Ryouken said. "We're just waiting for him."   
  
Kusanagi hummed under his breath. "OK, good. Just had to check."    
  
Ryouken breathed a sigh of relief when the hotdog man—Kusanagi—returned to his silver van. A light flicked on in the van, and he heard the thrum of an engine or generator. Next to him, Yuusaku shivered like a leaf, rubbing at his eyes. Deep, purple bags hung under his watery irises, and the pink of his cheeks and nose stood out against his translucent skin.   
  
"That man won't hurt us," Ryouken said. He didn’t look like anyone his father would meet, and besides, the stranger must have thought their guardian was coming for them soon. So long as they stayed there and told him that, they’d be fine. He gazed round the park; they’d need to find a place to sleep soon. Leaves for bedding and blankets sounded like camping, and excitedly he told Yuusaku about the idea.   
  
Yuusaku only stared back at him, petrified.   
  
However, all too soon, the door to the hot dog van opened again, bathing a single triangle of the park floor in warm, yellow light. The hotdog man, Kusanagi, stepped out and gave a little wave to the two of them.   
  
Yuusaku's hand slipped into his own.   
  
Ryouken used to trust adults. He used to trust strangers because the world used to be a good place. But after what his father did, Ryouken could only shiver at the sight of Kusanagi. He couldn’t trust this man. He couldn’t know for certain what would happen.   
  
But he also couldn’t run. An adult could outrun a kid, and an adult could call his father and send him back home.   
  
Kusanagi approached them once more, holding a bottle of soda in each hand. Yuusaku's eyes widened slightly at the sight of the fizzy drink, but Ryouken stiffened. His father once said to never take food from strangers, and even if he couldn’t trust his father, in his heart he trusted those words.   
  
"Your guardian coming soon?" Kusanagi asked again.   
  
Ryouken nodded his head.   
  
"Good, good. Mind if I wait with you? It's getting dark out and, well—I'd just feel better, all right?" Kusanagi let out a weak laugh, scratching at his stiff, hairy chin. His beard reminded Ryouken of his father's, and the similarity caused him to cringe. As if sensing his unease, Kusanagi held out the two soda bottles to them. "Here. I don't have anything to warm you up, but how about something sweet?"   
  
Neither of them reached out for the soda.    
  
"All right then, I'll hold onto these." He tucked them into the kangaroo pouch of his apron and patted his hand over his stomach. Not even a minute later, he asked again, "Do you have your guardian's number? Anyone I can call?"   
  
He did, but Ryouken shook his head. Anxiety pooled in his belly once more. If this adult wouldn’t leave them alone, they'd get caught. They'd go back home.   
  
Next to him, Yuusaku began to sniffle, wiping at his teary face.    
  
Kusanagi cleared his throat with a soft cough. "Hey kids, I'll be right back. I'm just going to make a quick phone call—"   
  
"No." He spat the words from his lips, and the next words came tumbling out after. "No, you can't call them, or anyone. No one."   
  
Kusanagi scratched his beard, one bushy eyebrow raised up into his mop top hair. "What's your name?" he asked instead.   
  
"Don't call anyone," Ryouken said again, as firmly as he could in his wobbling voice. "Please."   
  
But Kusanagi didn’t listen, or at least not how Ryouken wanted him to. "Want to make the phone call with me then? I'll let you dial the number, if you'd like."   
  
A soft, hitching sob caught his attention. Yuusaku. Yuusaku was crying again, trying his hardest to hold back his sobs but failing not only in muffling it but also drawing attention to his hands smushed over his face and the tears leaking onto his jacket sleeves. Quickly, Ryouken wiped at Yuusaku's cheek, but Kusanagi caught on at once.   
  
"Hey, what's going on—"   
  
"It's nothing!" Ryouken said. He winced when his words crack, but anxiety bubbling, he could only keep talking else Kusanagi, that stranger, sent them away. "It's nothing, and someone's coming to get us soon, I promise, please, I promise, he'll be here soon!" The more he spoke, the more frantic he became, until his own words dissolved into uncontrollable sobs. Hot tears poured down his cheeks—tears he’d never realised he'd been holding back all this time. Incoherently, he sobbed out sorry after sorry, apology after apology. The cold, unforgiving wind bit at his raw face, marred with tears and mucus.   
  
Through his blurry eyes, he saw a white napkin extended to him.   
  
"Here," Kusanagi said. "Wipe your tears, come on. And you too. You're not in trouble, neither of you. I'm just going to call a police officer who will wait with you until your guardian gets here, all ri—"   
  
"No!" He kicked the napkin away, vaguely noticing the look of surprise on Kusanagi's face. Adrenaline pumped through his veins, and he snatched up Yuusaku's wrist once more. They had to go—now.

Kusanagi reached into his pocket.

Ryouken yanked Yuusaku off the bench, but his own legs gave out before either of them could move. They fell to the ground in a mess of limbs and bodies, tumbling over each other. Small rocks dug into his cheek and he winced. He braced his arms to push himself up, but his body, tired from a day of walking and running and hiding away, disobeyed. Panic coursed through his veins. Now, now—they had to go.

But his arms and legs stayed still.

A muted sob rose in his throat. He wouldn’t cry again, not in front of his stranger. He pinched his lip between his teeth as Kusanagi knelt down.

"All right, all right, I won't call. But you can't wait out here in the dark, all right? Look, I'll leave a note for whoever is coming to collect you, and you can sit on the step of my truck where it's brighter and warmer. You don't even have to come inside; I'll leave the door open. Just ... you can't be out here by yourselves, all right?"

Sniffling, Ryouken nodded his head once.

"That's a good kid," Kusanagi said. He stretched out his hand, but with rejuvenated strength, Ryouken pushed himself up onto his own feet. He tugged Yuusaku up with him, and together the two of them dropped down on the single, metal step of the hot dog truck. Inside, Ryouken smelled bread and meat, and curiously he leaned his head back inside. His stomach ached beneath his clenched hands, and no doubt Yuusaku was just as hungry as him.

Kusanagi seemed to understand. "How about a snack while you wait?"

"Father said ... to never take food from strangers."

Kusanagi blinked, and then smiled. "Your dad taught you well. Is that who's coming for you?"

A flinch. In the corner of his vision, he saw the tempting food: several hotdogs piled up on a plate. Saliva pooled in his mouth, and the ache in his belly grew even stronger. One bite wouldn't hurt, would it? He could trust this man more than he could trust his own father, right?

Kusanagi followed his line of vision to the plate of food. "Look," he said, scratching his chin, "if you're hungry, I'll give you them, but I don't want you to get in trouble, all right?"

Ryouken nodded and held out his hand. A soft, warm bun dropped into his hand, encasing a single hot dog. Ravenously, he bit into it. Again and again, hardly taking time to chew or swallow between hungry bites. He didn’t even realise he'd finished it until Kusanagi dropped another one in his hand. He passed one to Yuusaku too, but Yuusaku only held the food in his hand, staring at it as if poisonous.

"Tastes fine," Ryouken said, bumping shoulders with him. "Eat up."

Yuusaku only shook his head.

Out of the corner of his eye, Ryouken saw Kusanagi's hand slip towards his pocket. He stiffened, ready to bolt once more.

"Please no—"

Kusanagi dropped his hand down. Sighed. For an adult, he looked much younger than Ryouken's father, and sillier too. He must not have been a father, Ryouken thought, and traitorously in his mind he wondered if he should trust this person more. Did fathers—did they do what Ryouken's father had done? What he might still have been doing?

"Are you worried you'll be in trouble?" Kusanagi asked him.

More trouble than he could possibly imagine. His father must have been home from his meeting by now, and no doubt he'd realised both he and Yuusaku had run away. Never before had Ryouken been in trouble; the worst he'd ever done was get into his candy before bedtime and lie about eating it. This time ... his lie ...

Just as he opened his mouth to answer, something in Kusanagi's face changed—a softness Ryouken had never seen on an adult before.

"Let's not make the phone call right now," Kusanagi said. His eyes flicked over to Yuusaku who curled closer to Ryouken. "Don't worry about that at all. Let's just ... come on in for a moment."

Fear hardened in his gut. He could trust Kusanagi more than his father, his mind supplied, and yet he stiffened as he climbed up into the van, tugging Yuusaku after him. As large as the van appeared from the outside, it was squishier inside. Most of the van was cupboards and cookers for the shop, but tucked up front was a chest of drawers, and at the back looked like a bed of some sorts. Kusanagi guided them to the driver and passenger seat at the front of the truck; refusing to even let go now, Ryouken and Yuusaku settled together on the driver's seat, tucking their knees up to their chins.

"I won't make a call tonight," Kusanagi told them, "and I'll wait for your guardian to show up, all right?"

Ryouken nodded his head. He leant back into the chair, and once his head touches the soft material, a wave of tiredness washed over him. He stifled a large yawn behind his hand, refusing to rub at one droopy eye. Was he so tired outside? Next to him, Yuusaku hid a yawn in his sleeve.

"How about a blanket?" Kusanagi said, already heading towards the back of the van. "Might as well get cosy for when your dad comes."

He nodded his head, feeling his eyes roll back in his head. He tried to force them open with his fingers, but that only made him feel more  _ tired,  _ and no matter how tightly he pressed his lips, he couldn’t stop yawning. If he fell asleep, it would be all over. He knew it.

A soft, cotton blanket fell around his shoulders, cinching underneath his wobbling chin, and with one last yawn, he fell asleep, still clutching Yuusaku's hand in his own. Even if he couldn’t stay awake, he couldn’t leave Yuusaku.

Not yet, not ever. 


	2. TWO

He saw Ryouken's head tip forward, and for one short, paralysing moment, Yuusaku thought he was alone with this stranger. He'd been dragged from one place to the next, moved from one corner of the world to the other. It'd been so long since he'd seen the outside that, at the first sight of the sunshine, he’d nearly ran back into the room. If it wasn't for Ryouken, that boy he met so long ago, holding his hand, he would have hidden away in that terrible place.

Now, Ryouken was asleep, eyes closed and head tilted against his shoulder. The heavy weight held back the intense chills that ran down his spine. Hunger gnawed at his stomach like a ravenous beast, and sleep clawed at his drooping eyelids. The inside of the van was warm, lulling him towards sleep. But he kept himself upright like a beanpole, holding his head steady and his eyes as open as an owl's.

Across from him was the man, Kusanagi. He reminded Yuusaku a bit of the Bad Man at the house, albeit a younger, and perhaps friendlier version. Kusanagi gave them food and blankets, presents the other man would have never given him in the Bad Room. But did that make him a good man? Each time he moved, Yuusaku's heart hammered in his throat. This was it—this was it for him, for them.

They were going back to the Bad Room.

But Kusanagi stayed where he was across from the room, and so Yuusaku tucked himself into the folds of the blanket. He rubbed a corner of it under his running eyes and nose, sniffling softly in the dim light. The hotdog Kusanagi had given him balanced on the passenger seat's armrest, and his eyes kept wandering over to the food. Would it be all right for him to eat it? Ryouken seemed fine, but then what if ...

Kusanagi smiled at him, one cheek cupped in his hand. Dark shadows hung under his eyes, and from time to time he stifled a yawn into his hand. He moved once to pour himself a cup of coffee, and Yuusaku watched the grinds topple into the little cup, then the hot water.

"You thirsty?" Kusanagi asked when he catches his eyes. "I've got water."

He shrunk deeper into the blanket. In the Bad Room, there was food and water too, but only if ...

He set a small, glass cup next to the hotdog. "If you want," Kusanagi said, and returned to his seat.

Yuusaku stared at the offerings. Poison. It must be poison.

He ducked his head as he stifled another yawn into his sleeve, and tiredly rubbed at his eyes.

Then Kusanagi moved, not fast or far, but enough that Yuusaku's gaze snapped to him. He pushed at the wall in front of him and the panel of chopping boards and tiled wall flipped away, replaced by a clean keyboard and several screens stitched together—a complex computer. Yuusaku stiffened at the sight of the flickering screen. In the Bad Room, there was a screen too, and a headset—

His breath caught in his lungs, heavy and choking.

They were in the Bad Room again.

The air left his lungs, never returning. All at once he felt everything and nothing, eyes hazy, body weak. He tried to cough out a breath, or drag in any proper air, but the world tilted on its axis. When he shook his head around, he saw not the walls of the truck or the blanket around his shoulders, but a creeping, encroaching darkness ready to swallow him whole.

A single, petrified scream tore from his lungs, shaking him from his head to his toes.

Then the world was clear, all at once—painfully, suddenly—

He shoved his face into his knees and screamed, chest heaving with each breath. Cold air washed over him, and he kept on choking and coughing until his voice gave out. No one touched him, nothing zapped him, but he felt the current run over his arms and legs, freezing him in the spot. He couldn’t move, couldn’t run away.

As soon as it began, it ended.

Deafening silence remained. He kept his face pressed into his knees, focusing on the sharp breaths tearing through his lungs, the shakes coursing down his limbs. Ryouken's head remained on his shoulder, its heavy weight grounding him to the seat. The blanket, however, lied on the ground like a fallen soldier, and hastily he snatched it back up and presses it to his face. It didn’t feel or smell like anything from the Bad Place, and that sentiment alone drew him back to where he was: the van, with Ryouken, with the stranger, without the Bad Man and the Bad People.

Still, he didn’t tear his eyes away from the blanket. Blue, like the sky, like his hair, like Ryouken's bright eyes.

Ryouken. He wouldn't have brought him somewhere bad. He wouldn't have ... he didn't ...

Carefully, he lifted his head, just an inch from his knocking knees. Kusanagi sat at the desk, fingers hovering over the keys. His gaze remained firmly on a spot just above Yuusaku's head, as if he was trying to look like he _wasn’t_ looking at him. As soon as Yuusaku lifted his head, Kusanagi returned to typing on the keyboard. His fingers danced over the keys—holographic and suspended a couple inches off the desk. Letters appeared on one of the screens; on the others were various documents and files, and on one was a video clip of a reporter.

His vision blurred as another shiver ran through his body. He was colder than before, even swaddled in the blanket—

Oh.

_ Oh no. _

He shifted from side to side, rubbing his damp legs together, trying not to jostle Ryouken who, even with his screaming, slept on, cheek pressed to the cool window glass. The spot beneath him was damp too, and he wriggled away from it, all the while trying to cover what he'd done. 

He felt Kusanagi’s eyes on him and hot shame burned his gut. He must have known, and when he got up, Yuusaku tucked his head down to his cheek. He'd be in trouble, wouldn't he?

Instead, Kusanagi returned with a bath towel, thick and plush and the same blue as the blanket. "Here you go, that can't be comfortable, come on—"

Yuusaku stiffened the closer Kusanagi came. He pressed himself further into the seat, curling his hands up to his chest.

Kusanagi stopped. "You want to do it yourself?"

A mute nod.

"All right."

He left the towel on the floor, neatly folded into a little square. Yuusaku scooped it up, holding it between his hands. He shifted off the seat, feet touching the cool laminate. A shiver ran down his spine, and his cheeks burned in embarrassment. Soaked. Quickly, he wrapped the towel around himself, then froze. Kusanagi had watched him the entire time.

"Do you want to see what I'm doing?"

He didn’t move.

"You can watch a video here, if you'd like."

Again, he didn’t move.

From beneath the desk Kusanagi pulled out a cardboard box, most likely filled with hotdog condiments or dry ingredients. He patted the box once and said, "If you want, you can sit here, or with your friend there." Then he went back to his work, fingers dancing over the keys. He didn’t look once in Yuusaku's direction, too busy scanning the screens in front of him.

Yuusaku watched them too. Just how could someone pay attention to everything all at once? His eyes flicked from one screen to the next, to the video to the news article. He chewed on the tip of one thumb, then blinked when he saw a video. There on the screen was him—his picture, face set in a firm line. Ryouken's photo was right next to his too, only he was smiling in his photo, sitting on a swing set with his legs kicked up into the air.

Kusanagi's hand hovered over the keyboard.

"... that's me," Yuusaku whispered.

Kusanagi head dipped forward, just once. "That your friend too?"

Yuusaku nodded his head and, when he realised Kusanagi, even if he was looking out of the corner of his eye, would not be able to see him, he said, "Ryouken."

Kusanagi ran a hand through his thick hair. He sighed so deeply a little puff of air flutters in the room, and then he said, "Yuusaku."

His name. He froze. His name on Kusanagi's lips sounded ... wrong. Even though Kusanagi couldn’t be a Bad Man like at the house, he  _ looked  _ like he could be. He  _ might  _ have been.

"Is Ryouken your brother?" Kusanagi asked instead.

"Friend."

"Were you playing with him today?"

He paused, fingers tight on the towel. Just when he opened his mouth, his stomach gave another curdling gurgle, followed by a twist so tight it felt like knots were growing in his gut. He pressed a hand to his stomach and let out a weak, choked cough. Tears pricked at the corners of his eyes.

"You might be hungry," Kusanagi told him, still sitting at his computer chair. "How about something to eat? Do you like hotdogs, or ..."

Yuusaku snatched up the hotdog on the armrest. The meat looked unappealing, but he bit into the bread and chewed. The food he’d eaten in the Bad Room stuck to his teeth and slithered down his gullet, but this food, albeit bland, tasted better than anything he would have been served. One eye remained on Kusanagi as he took more and more bites, until all that remained was the waxy dog. He held it limply in his hand until Kusanagi motioned for it.

"You don't have to eat it all. How about some water?"

Greedily, he drunk. Water slipped down the wrong pipe and he coughed roughly into his sleeve, holding the cup in a fist so as not to break it on the floor. He set it back down on the arm rest and, once sated, stared at Kusanagi. His stomach still hurt, and his eyes threatened to close at any moment. Yet he kept himself steady against the chair, one hand clenched in the faux leather. If he fell asleep, if he closed  his eyes for even a moment ...

"That feel better?" Kusanagi said. He took another sip from his own mug, and thin tendrils of steam curled around his face. "I don't have any clothes that would fit you, but do you want a new shirt? You're shivering."

He was, and probably had been for hours. As he glanced down at his hands, he saw goosebumps up and down his pale, bony arms. Sniffling, he nodded his head, but he flinched when Kusanagi stood up and headed to the back of the van. He returned with a thick, short-sleeved shirt decorated with a dog's face on it.

"You're at Cafe Nagi," Kusanagi said, bending down so that they were level, "so how about a Cafe Nagi t-shirt? The sleeves are long enough for you too."

He let Yuusaku dress himself, yanking the shirt over his head and adjusting it over his shoulders. Sure enough, the shirt was plenty big, hanging down to the ground. Yuusaku toed off the soiled garments, cheeks still pink as he pushed them towards the side of the van. Kusanagi said nothing as he collected them and deposited them in a plastic bag. Then he held out a sweater for Yuusaku, just as big and bulky, but thick and warm with a fuzzy, fleece hood.

"You look cold."

Gratefully, Yuusaku sunk into the jacket. His eyes slipped closed, and he shook himself away, nearly tumbling into the counters. Kusanagi reached out a hand for him to steady himself with, but Yuusaku's own hands found the ridges in the countertops and he held himself up on weak knees.  His gaze turned back to the screen, still with his and Ryouken's pictures on them. He couldn’t read the kanji or the katakana around the pictures—just how did this stranger get his and Ryouken's pictures? Yuusaku hadn't even seen that photo of himself.

"Yuusaku."

He jumped at his own name.

"Want to watch some videos?"

He shook his head. The screen taunted him with its flickering lights, and each time the little video player in the web browser restarted, Yuusaku leapt another foot in the air.

Just when he thought Kusanagi might not understand, he caught on with a slow nod of his head and a soft "ah-hah."

"Stay there, Yuusaku," he said, "and I'll come back."

Panic rose in his gut. If he left this man alone, who knew if he'd return? He'd be stuck in this van, alone once more. Quickly, he rushed forward and grabbed onto Kusanagi's jacket, not meaning to hold onto him but just to keep him still for a moment longer. The moment Kusanagi's eyes fell on him, he shivered down to his toes.

"You want to come with me?" Kusanagi asked. "I'm just getting a book for you—think I have something with pictures in it."

Yuusaku nodded his head. He remembered, earlier today, sitting on the chair and watching Ryouken flip through the thick, dusty books. There weren't many pictures in those, and so he doubted Kusanagi had better books. To his surprise, Kusanagi led him not to the back of the truck, but just to the side where two smalls shelves had been carved out of the wall. Dozens of brightly coloured books lined the tiered shelves. Though he couldn’t read the titles, his eyes locked on a particularly bright, baby-blue spine.

"See one you like?" Kusanagi asked.

He froze. A question. An opinion. A  _ trick. _

"Here, then let's grab a couple." Kusanagi plucked several from the shelf, including the baby-blue book, and carried them over to the desk. He set them up on the table, spreading them out for Yuusaku to peruse through. Then he patted the second swivel chair.

Yuusaku shook his head. Not on the computer. Not near the screens.

"Do you want to read them on the seat then?"

When he didn’t answer, Kusanagi brought the books over to the nest of blanket and scratchy cotton fibre seat material. Yuusaku tucked into the blanket, drawing his knees up to his chest, while Kusanagi brought round the books. Now that he could see them more clearly, the beautiful food designs popped out of the page—and in some cases, the cover had been warped to make the food appear three-dimensional. Each book was different too, from big suppers to small patisseries. His baby-blue book featured several quaint, pastel-decorated cupcakes arranged on a three-tiered silver display, the likes he could only imagine in fairy tales.

"Got a sweet tooth?" Kusanagi said, tapping the cover. "Have to buy you some treats."

The cupcakes already looked delicious on the page—he couldn’t even imagine tasting one. In the Bad Room, the food tasted the same, and while never rotten, there were no treats or cupcakes.

But then this new man—was he buying cupcakes to treat him, or to ...

"Yuusaku."

The sound of his name startled him, and he pulled the book up to his chest.

"How about I let you read that while I do some work? I'll be right over there."

Mutely, he nodded. Only once Kusanagi was seated back at his desk did he open the book once more and peruse the glossy confectioneries. Cakes, cupcakes, and tarts—an encyclopedia of decadent dessert that would have made anyone's mouth water. His stomach ached just looking at them, and as alert as he felt, he found himself drawn more to the pictures on the pages than anything happening in the van—and in fact, nothing had happened. Ryouken slept on in the seat next to him, cheek pressed to the foggy window; Kusanagi tapped away at his desk, only briefly gazing in their general direction.

As he flipped through the pages, his eyes grew heavier. Yuusaku rubbed them with tight, balled up fists, forcing himself to remain awake. However, if anything, staying awake only made him feel worse. Anxiety pooled in his belly, and a sharp pain ached in his head.

One minute he was rubbing his eyes, and the next minute he was wiping the tears away.

In the corner of his eye, he spots Kusanagi holding out another napkin for him.

"Bet you're tired," he said in a soft, lulling voice.

Yuusaku forced his eyes open, letting more tears drip down his cheeks. He caught Kusanagi's hand moving, but it only tugged the corner of the blanket up towards his shoulder. He nestled his cheek into the warm fabric, soaking up the salty tears on his face. Sniffling, he pulled the book closer to him. A barrier—a barrier to keep him safe.

"If you fall asleep," Kusanagi said, still in a tone as soft as cotton fluff, "I'll be there when you wake up, Yuusaku. I promise you'll be all right."

A shaky breath spilled from his lips.

"I promise, I'm here to keep you safe."

He saw Ryouken, safe and warm and swaddled in the thick blanket Kusanagi had given him. Around his own shoulders were the t-shirt and hoodie, both smelling oddly of grease and food. Yuusaku drew the hood up around his ears and pulled the brim low over his eyes. With his vision already darkening, he ought to hide himself. But he listened for Kusanagi to move closer or away.

He stayed stiller than a stone in a pond, repeating the same, lulling words: "I'm here to keep you safe."


	3. THREE

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this is a couple days late, but i didn't want to miss the update so it's here ^^

Ryouken woke up screaming until his lungs gave out. He came to all at once, tumbling out of whatever phantom nightmare he had been trapped in and winding up with his cheek pressed into something cold and wet. He tumbled out of his stupor, knocking a hand against the glass that reflected his pale, weary face. His first breath burned in his racing lungs and he coughed it out all too quickly.

Where—where did he end up?

Not his house nor his father's room nor that other, terrible room in the basement where—

Yuusaku.

He had but a second to register that Yuusaku was near him when he gave a little gasp and cry, and he shot up from his seat in a mess of tears and coughs too. He rubbed at his green eyes, and Ryouken rubbed at his own eyes. If Yuusaku was here, and curled up in a plush blanket and a thick, too-big sweater, they must not be anywhere too dangerous. More specifically, they must not be in the basement.

The van, his mind supplied. He'd woken up in the cramped hotdog van they found yesterday, if the clock was already past midnight. A faint yellow light glowed out the window, but it could have been either the beginning of dawn or a particularly strong streak of yellow lamp post light. The only light in the van came from the glowing computer monitors around Kusanagi, who sat at the desk rubbing his rough hands over his face. He looked as tired as Ryouken felt, bone-weary and drowsy.

"Hey," he said.

Ryouken tucked his knees to his chest, focusing on settling his breath. If he could keep calm, maybe that would help Yuusaku too. Once he was breathing regularly, he uncurled himself and slid his legs off the seat. There wasn't much room to walk around the van, and he had nowhere to go either, but he itched to move. Just as he pressed his toes to the ground, Kusanagi spoke up.

"I don't suppose you're hungry today ..."

He nodded his head once. The hotdog from yesterday had sated him through the night, but his tummy rumbled and his dry throat itched when he spoke up.

"Yes ... please."

"Nice manners," Kusanagi said offhandedly, and handed him a hotdog.

He held it in his hand.

"I don't have much else, I'm afraid," Kusanagi said. "But if you want, I can put some ketchup on it."

Ryouken shook his head and bit into the bread. Next to him, Yuusaku practically devoured his bun—no hotdog for him, just the soft, white bread. His eyes fell on the books on Yuusaku's lap: cookbooks, he imagined, and plenty of them featuring pictures of pizzas and cakes and delicious soups and rice bowls. His mouth watered at the food—meals that he and his father would have split together over their large, wooden dinner table.

At the thought of his father, the food in his mouth turned sour, and he swallowed the remainder of the sludge and set the bun away.

"Water?" Kusanagi said, handing him a glass.

He shook his head—even liquid would upset his stomach.

Past Kusanagi, he spotted screens: several of them stitched together across a board on the wall. Each screen displayed a different image: some of a complex layout, and others of a basic home screen. He spotted the news open in the internet browser, and in the corner were his and Yuusaku's pictures. Wanted, the screen read. The only word he could make out, and yet the single word still sent his stomach rolling like a bowling ball.

"You—you called—"

"I didn't call anyone," Kusanagi said, and crossed his fingers for extra measure. "I promise, not the police or your dad. You two can be here for a while until I sort this ... out."

"Sort it out?" Ryouken echoed.

"It's nothing to worry about." While assuring, Ryouken stiffened. His father did something bad by locking Yuusaku away in that room. The Lost Incident sounded like a bad project too, and he considered telling Kusanagi something about it just so that he could discern whether or not he'd be sent away. If he and Yuusaku had to run, he had to figure out somewhere else to hide.

But Kusanagi kept on speaking, and his tone reminded Ryouken of when father used to tell him, "Everything will be all right."

"Are you like Father?" Ryouken blurted out.

A single, purple eyebrow rose into Kusanagi's bushy hair. "No," he said. "I'm not like your father. I told Yuusaku earlier—Ryouken, I'm here to protect you."

He clutched the corner of the blanket in the fist. "Do you ... do you know Father?"

"Not at all."

"And—and you won't call him?"

"Wouldn't dream of it."

Sighing, he tumbled back into the seat, kicking out his legs. His pants legs had become dirty and dusty from crawling behind the hedges and running through the streets, and tear stains pockmarked the front of his t-shirt. He scrunched up his nose at the foul-smelling garments, and across from him, Yuusaku did the same.

"If you're going to stay here," Kusanagi said, "I need to buy you some clothes. And food." He paused. "What do you, uh, like?"

"Fruit," Ryouken said at once. Sweets too, but the thought of hard candies and lollipops after running away from home sat ill in his stomach. His father used to give him too many sweets. But fruit—he longed for fruit. And rice. And porridge that you could make in the microwave. Once the ideas filled his mind, he began to call them out whether Kusanagi would buy them for him or not. To his surprise, every item got written on a little scrap of paper with the logo "Cafe Nagi" at the bottom.

"And Yuusaku?" Kusanagi asked. "What for you?"

He said nothing.

"How about bread?" Ryouken spoke up. "Soft bread. I'll even share my strawberries with you."

Stiffly, Yuusaku agreed. Ryouken could only imagine the horrible food Yuusaku had to eat downstairs, and he wished for nothing more than to stuff his friend full of all the wonderful treats he’d gotten to eat upstairs. To think after all this time, he ... he had been down  _ there— _

The rustle of paper startled him, and his eyes widened at Kusanagi, already with his jacket round his shoulders and his shoes on his feet. He held the keys in his hand, ready to leave the house.

Panic coursed through his veins.

"No, no—wait!" Ryouken said, leaping from the seat. He snatches onto Kusanagi's sleeve, giving him a firm pull. Kusanagi gently pushed his fingers away, but he clung even tighter until his nails were pressing through the fabric and back into his palms. "Stop, don't call—"

"I'm not calling them," Kusanagi said. He wriggled his fingers between Ryouken's palms, successfully removing the digits.

Ryouken snatched up Kusanagi's pant leg. "You c-can't—"

"I'm just going to the store," he said, "to pick up—"

He didn’t hear the rest, not over his and Yuusaku's combined sobs. They echoed through the metal van, ricocheting off the walls like ping-pong balls. His sobs only increased when Kusanagi clicked the door open. They were going to get caught in this place, he just knew it. They were going to be trapped in the van until he drove them back to Father's place, and then Yuusaku would go back down into the basement and maybe Ryouken would too, and both of them would be far, far—

He didn’t even hear the door click closed, or notice that Kusanagi still stood in the room with his hands hanging limply, keys dangling from his fingertips. He didn't notice anything until his sobs quietened down and he removed his hands from his red eyes.

"S-sir—"

"Kusanagi," he corrected with a shrug. "And fine, I'm not leaving. But you need ... to come with me then, and ..."

Outside. They could go outside, where they were free but not safe, where they were with Kusanagi but out in the open. The thought of returning outside where people might spot him clicked in his mind, and by the way Kusanagi harrumphed, he must have realised what Ryouken had just thought of.

"You're safer in here."

But here, he'd be alone with Yuusaku. They made it out of the house by sheer luck, but if someone came to the door looking for him, or something bad happened to him or Yuusaku.

"Please," Yuusaku said, voice little more than a weak whisper.

"Hats then," he said. "You both need hats."

Kusanagi returned with two black beanies, one for each of them. The itchy fabric scratched his ears and clumped his hair together, but it hid his and Yuusaku’s visible hair. Ryouken shuffled back and forth in yesterday's clothes, but Yuusaku, he realised, wore only a large shirt and an even larger hoodie. Fortunately, Kusanagi came back with a jacket that, while long, makes it look like Yuusaku was wearing shorts.

"Pants first for you," he mumbled as he let Yuusaku wriggle into the new clothes. Once set, Ryouken scrambled to the mirror to see for himself. He still looked like him, he thought, but without his distinctive hair, he looked like any other child on the street, and in fact he and Yuusaku, despite the two years between their ages, looked similar. He snuggled deeper into the long jacket Kusanagi gave him.

"We change when we get clothes, all right? You too ... geez, you really don't look ... All right, let's go."

None of the words made sense to Ryouken, especially not strung together, but he head out with Kusanagi into the sunlight. Though only last night was he swept off the bench and into the truck, the sun's harsh beams and the wind's fierce slapped shock him. He was outside. The world seemed even bigger and more frightening than before, and he tucked himself back towards the door. Behind him, Yuusaku clung to the doorway with eyes as wide as glassy marbles.

"You can stay home ..."

"No," he said quickly and leapt off the final step. Little dust plumes encircled his feet. All around him were pedestrians out commuting or shopping. He expected everyone to turn when they spotted him, bring their phones to their ears and call Father. But no one glanced his way except Kusanagi who awkwardly hung his hand at his side.

"Stay close," he said after a moment.

Ryouken held onto Yuusaku's hand, cool and clammy with the nails bitten down to his skin.  Unlike yesterday, Yuusaku didn’t drag behind like a sack of potatoes, and instead kept in line with Ryouken as they wandered through the city with Kusanagi. Familiar with the roads and shops, Ryouken spotted his favourite bakery with decadent flans and strawberry-creme cupcakes, and the flower store that sold the largest sunflowers in all of Den City. However, the sight of the familiar shops only raised his anxiety. What if those shop owners recognised him? He was a frequent customer.

Kusanagi took them to a simple thrift store, clean and well-maintained with shelves and hangers stocked with dozens of clothes. He led them back towards the children's section and then began holding up tops and trousers next to them, frowning all the while.

"Any preferences, favourites ..."

They shook their heads; Ryouken, too worried that someone would recognise his voice, only nodded and frowned as Kusanagi held up several long-sleeve shirts. All the while, Kusanagi muttered to himself phrases such as, "Getting colder, we need to layer up," and "Do kids even like to wear this? You kids even old enough to care about fashion?"

Once done, they brought their purchases to the counter. Yuusaku hid behind Kusanagi, and Ryouken kept his head tucked down and his beanie pulled low over his forehead. He didn’t speak up until they were out of the shop.

"... thank you, sir."

"Just Kusanagi, all right?" He hefted the bag up over his shoulder and gazed down at Yuusaku. "We'll get you changed soon, got it?" Brought a hand down to scratch at Yuusaku's hat-covered head.

Yuusaku stiffened like a board, breath cutting short. He didn’t scream or cry, but the reaction still spoke volumes, and Ryouken quickly intervened.

"Count to three, Yuusaku, and then let's go ..."

The words slipped off his tongue as he caught sight the poster hung up on the shop wall—his and Ryouken's "Missing Children" posters. The company had used the same photos as the ad on the website, but somehow seeing the posters in person made them more real, and ergo more frightening. Even with the hats, he knew he looked identical to his photograph—his white hair wasn't the only noticeable feature of him. Yuusaku with his glassy-green eyes looked even more familiar, and anyone with half a brain cell should have been able to spot them from the ads.

"Count to—"

"Come along," Kusanagi said, taking them both by the hand.

He didn’t mean to, but he stiffened too. Kusanagi's hand was sharper and rougher, and though he knew it wasn’t his father's, for a moment it felt like the very same hand readying to tousle his hair.

Yuusaku shut down like a computer system. His eyes glazed over and he stood, head bowed, in the middle of the square. Ryouken had seen Yuusaku shut down once before, briefly at the library, but now he seemed unresponsive, caught up in a nightmare. His little breaths came short and fast, puffing out of his pale cheeks. Fingers clenched and trembled at his sides, but he gave no indication that he realised either he or Kusanagi were nearby, or that anyone else was watching from afar.

"Yuu—come on, let's go."

Ryouken shook Yuusaku's hand once. "Count to three," he said again.

But Yuusaku only dug his feet in, and this time scrunched his eyes closed. Small tears prickled along his eyelashes, threatening to fall at any moment.

Kusanagi moved. He scooped Yuusaku up like an infant and braced him on his chest, with Yuusaku's legs curled around his waist. His head rested against his shoulder, and, standing behind Kusanagi, Ryouken spotted Yuusaku's teary face.

"Time to go," Kusanagi said, stretching out a hand for Ryouken.

Kusanagi was—he was holding Yuusaku, not firmly, but enough that Yuusaku had begun to cry once more, tilting his head away. He struggled weakly in the grip, twisting from side to side. The entire sight looked like the beginning of a meltdown, and though Ryouken didn’t want to hear Yuusaku cry, he also couldn’t ... he couldn’t go along ...

"Come on," Kusanagi said, and this time he grabbed Ryouken's hand.

His body seized up like a spring. Heels dug into the cement and regardless of where Kusanagi wanted to take him, every fiber of his body said,  _ Do not go.  _ So he didn’t, pulling away and twisting his hand and kicking up a fuss like he would when he was a much younger child.

"No, no, no—stop, stop—lemme go—"

"We need to go  _ home—" _

"Please, please no—" Yuusaku's voice cracked as he begins to cough, crunching over Kusanagi's shoulder. With tears in his eyes, Ryouken wriggled from side to side, but even if he pulled with all his might, he still moved down the pathway. Kusanagi was taking him somewhere, but over his howls, he heard nothing, and his vision grew too hazy to even spot if they were going somewhere good.

Eventually though, the movement stopped. Eventually, everything stopped as something tumbled over his head. He heard Yuusaku sniffling next to him; his cries stopped the moment the thing—the  _ blanket— _ landed on his head. The two of them sucked in their first proper breaths, stilling their cries to soft murmurs and silent sobs, until at last he could breathe more easily. Only then did he pull the blanket off his head and gaze around the van. All the lights were turned off, and not even the hum of the space heater permeated the silence. Kusanagi sat at the desk, head held in his hands. He peeked between his fingers when he saw them, and all at once the embarrassment, shame, and fear knocked Ryouken over like a tonne of bricks.

The shame hit worst of all.

Kusanagi looked terrible, even sleepier than before. He looked angry too—

"You're not in trouble," Kusanagi said evenly, "and I’m not angry. I'm sorry."

He blinked back the welling tears, brushing the corner of the blanket under his eyes. Yuusaku peeked his head out from the blanket too, and his cheek pressed against the curve of Ryouken's shoulder. A single, cold hand slipped into his own.

"I'm sorry," Kusanagi continued, "for dragging you both home."

Ryouken nodded his head. "Sorry ..."

"Sorry," Yuusaku said too, voice petering off at the end.

The silence around them threatened to swallow the truck, and to chase it away, Kusanagi slipped out of his seat and began preparing ingredients on the counter: more hotdogs. As plain as the meal might have been, he wanted nothing more than warm comfort food to munch on, and so he gratefully accepted the meat and bun. Yuusaku munched away on the bread.

"Tomorrow," Kusanagi said, "I'm going shopping. Alone. I promise you, I'll come back. But we can't all live on bread and meat, especially not the way you two like it. But you can't come with me, not with ..." He rolled his shoulders back. "I promise, I'll return. I'll always return."

After today, Ryouken didn’t want to leave the hotdog van either. But his heart still raced as the thought of Kusanagi leaving them alone. He could call the police, or worse Father. He could do something horrible if Ryouken didn’t watch him.   
  
"Now, let's get those beanies off your heads and both of you into some clean clothes. You can have a bath too, actually. Let me get that ready ..."   
  
Ryouken watched him peter off, slipping out of view behind a door that opened up into the side of the van. The room couldn’t have been that large, but he heard Kusanagi bustle around in there, and after a moment the sound of running water filled the room. Curiously, he tilted his head to the side. Was there really a bath in there?   
  
Kusanagi popped his head round the corner just as he slipped down from his spot on the seat.   
  
"Here."   
  
He slid off the seat and padded down the van. Having not been anywhere but the driver's seat, Ryouken gazed around at the many cupboards and drawers all around the van; this house must have been made of places to put and hold things. There was only one door at the back of the van though, opening up to a squished bathroom. A wash tub no larger than a bucket was tucked into one corner, and the toilet and sink were crammed against the opposing wall. The shower head hung from above to wash off with, and the drain in the middle of the floor let the water run off into the tank.   
  
Yuusaku peered into the room with him.   
  
"You, uh ..." Kusanagi scratched his head, eyes avoided. "Can bathe by yourself?"   
  
Ryouken nodded his head. He and Yuusaku closed the door. The water had already filled up the tub, and so after they washed off, they clambered into the tub. Despite its petite size, they both fit without having to bump knees, and Ryouken settled back in the tub and let the water soak his shoulders. Across from him, Yuusaku curled up with his hands tucked under his chin. Small bruises littered up and down his shoulders and arms—marks Ryouken hadn’t seen when they ran away.   
  
"Those hurt?" he asked. The water gargled his words, but Yuusaku still heard him.   
  
"... bit.”.   
  
"Try dipping your shoulders in the water."   
  
Yuusaku did, but he only winced in pain. Cuts. There was  a cut across his chest, neither large nor deep but enough that Ryouken felt his heart clench with each of Yuusaku's winces and gasps. Still, he stayed in the tub and eventually soaked his shoulders.   
  
"m sorry," Ryouken said after a moment. He swished the water round with his pointer finger, eyes tilted down to the clear water. Vaguely, he smelt an aroma—soap, or perhaps a mild perfume Kusanagi poured into the bath. It made him want to close his eyes and settle deeper into the water, but he crouched in the bath and kept his mouth and nose above the surface. "m sorry," he tried again, "for this."   
  
Yuusaku blinked at him.   
  
"I saw ... I saw the 'Lost Incident' ... on a folder Father wrote."   
  
"Lost ... Incident ..."   
  
Quickly, Ryouken added, "I don't know what it means. Or what ... what happened. But ... but if we stay here, then maybe ... then maybe we'll be all right?"   
  
Yuusaku shook his head.   
  
A new pain burns—fear. Fear, the kind he has felt slowly tearing at his ragged heart. "No?" he echoed. "But then ..."   
  
"I don't want to go to sleep," Yuusaku said though, and he folded into himself and blew bubbles in the bath. The clear water reflected the deep green of his eyes, and when he spoke, his gaze only became deeper, harsher. "I don't ... want to fall asleep ..."   
  
"Because of down there?" Ryouken asked.   
  
A nod.   
  
"Did you have a bad dream?"   
  
Another nod.   
  
"Then I'll sleep with you."   
  
A blink. The water jostled, blurring the reflection—but Ryouken's could see Yuusaku's pale face easily now, eyes wide and mouth hanging open. He looked neither afraid nor happy, but ... but something of relief, or perhaps apprehension. Frankly, he hadn’t seen enough of Yuusaku to know what anything other that unbridled fear looked like on him—and all too soon, that very same fear caught Yuusaku in its hold. He sniffled and wiped at his face, once more toying with the water.   
  
"I'll sleep next to you," Ryouken said, sloshing the water with one great sweep of his hand. Water tumbled out of the water and down the floor drain, but he pressed on. "I'll scare away those nightmares, and I'll be there when you wake, just like—just like—"   
  
Father.   
  
"Mr. Kusanagi?"    
  
Though he tried to quell it, a small smile flickered over his lips. Kusanagi did say ... and for Yuusaku ...   
  
"Yeah, like Mr. Kusanagi.” He practically bounced in the tub, splashing even more water over the edge. Yuusaku let out a single yelp, swinging an arm out as if to try and put the water back in the bath.

Once the water had turned lukewarm, they clambered out and dried off their hair. Kusanagi had left pyjamas on the toilet for them, and they slipped into soft, cotton tops and bottoms decorated with rockets.    
  
"We match," Ryouken said, proudly holding out the pyjama top.   
  
Not a smile, but a tuck of his lips, appeared on Yuusaku's face. The barest of pink dusted his cheeks too—the first healthy colour on his face since they had ran away.   
  
"Yeah ..."   
  
Outside, Kusanagi sat once more at his desk, tapping away at his computer. He stopped when the bathroom door closed and he stood up; both he and Yuusaku shirked back into the bathroom.   
  
"I just want to show you your bed," he said. "Come look."   
  
Stretched out on the floor was a single futon, tucked in with a thin, white sheet and a thick, black comforter. A single pillow rested at the top. At his own house, Ryouken had his own private room decorated in stars and galaxies, with a blue mattress that looked like the Milky Way. Yuusaku, however, had eyes as wide as pancakes, and knelt down to touch the thick comforter. When Ryouken found him in the basement, he didn’t recall seeing any bed or thick blankets.   
  
"I'll sleep back there," Kusanagi said, pointing to the back of the van. "And you can come and, um, get me if you need anything."   
  
Yuusaku dropped down onto the bed, curling up into the comforter. Carefully, Ryouken climbed in next to him. He tucked the blanket up to his chin, snuggling his body further into the futon. However, just as Kusanagi moved to turn off the light, he jumped up.   
  
"On."   
  
His hand stilled. "How about a little light then? There's one here." He flicks a different switch and a small light above the cooking counter illuminated.   
  
"Fine," Ryouken said, tucking himself into bed once more. Already, he felt his eyes grow heavy, but he watched Kusanagi head to the back of the truck. Through the darkness, all he could see was a vague, hazy shadow, but he listened for as long as he could for the sound of a phone ringing, or the murmur of whispering.   
  
Within the minute, he fell asleep. 


	4. FOUR

He couldn’t sleep. Ryouken slept like the dead with the light on, pale light illuminating his soft face. He curled up against the pillow, blankets tucked under his round chin. But Yuusaku lied as stiff as a board on the bed, eyes flicking from one side to the next. Each creak of the van, each breath, sent his heart racing. Gone was his rationality.

He shot upright when he heard the slightest shift from outside.

No sleep. If he slept, someone would come for him. They would slip through the window or crawl under the truck, and then they'd drag him back to the Bad Room, back to the cold and dark floor he had slept on. The Bad Man would be there too, dragging him along as if he weighed no more than a sack of potatoes. The memories felt so real that the ghost of a feeling trickled down his arms. He didn’t cry, but he wished he could. Frozen in fear, he could only sit on the bed and wait for the sun to rise or for Ryouken to wake up. Even when his head tipped forward and his eyes rolled back into their sockets, he rubbed himself awake and patted his cheeks. No sleep. No rest or relaxation, not when in the blink of an eye he could be swept off his feet and returned to the horrible place.

He jumped again when the van creaked, and he stifled a whimper into his fist. Silent. Quieter than a mouse. He peered down the hallway, and just before he emerged, he caught sight of a human-shaped shadow.

"N—"

"Yuusaku."

Kusanagi. Of course it would be Kusanagi, crouching down to his level with a look of worry etched across his tired face. He rubbed first at his eyes and then at his stubble, and then said, "Can’t sleep?"

He shook his head.

"Scared you'll have a nightmare?"

More afraid than anything else in the whole wide world. Even with Ryouken sleeping next to him, he didn’t want to close his eyes and picture himself back in the Bad Room. Even with Kusanagi next to him, he couldn’t be certain he's wake up safely in the van. He could be taken away once more.

"Want me to sit next to you until you fall asleep?"

No, not at all. Body rigid, he pulled himself further into the blankets. Ryouken trusted Kusanagi, but Yuusaku—he knew something bad could still happen to them. Something awful. And Kusanagi, as kind as he may have seemed, also seemed like an adult who could hurt them. He'd let them eat hotdogs and bought them clothes, but who's to say he wouldn’t lock them in a cupboard? At the thought, Yuusaku began to tremble harder. His teeth chattered with a sound that echoed through the van.

Sighing, Kusanagi stood back up and began perusing through the kitchen. He pulled out various cups and containers, and Yuusaku watched him measure out a glass of milk and warm it in the microwave. Then he held it out to him.

"Careful, it's hot."

He hadn’t had a warm drink in ages, not since ...

Greedily, he slurped up the drink. His eyes widened at the particular sweetness to it—not just milk, but—

"Honey."

"That's right," Kusanagi said, settling back down on the floor. He cupped a cheek in his large, rough hand, resting himself against the cupboard doors. "Makes it taste a bit better."

It did. Yuusaku drunk it up until the milk sat heavy in his tummy, warming him from the inside out. He drunk until the cup was empty, but he kept the hot porcelain in his hands to warm himself further. The worrying sounds from before were mere echoes in the back of his mind, and with his stomach full, he felt his eyes start to slide closed once more, body swaying. But just as his eyes started to roll back, he snapped himself forward at the sound of Kusanagi shifting.

Kusanagi's soothing voice cut through his mounting panic. "Yuusaku, it's all right. It's bedtime."

"... no."

A sigh. "Do you want to read a story?"

His gaze shifts to the book at the side of the bed—the cookbooks he and Kusanagi looked at earlier. Slowly, he nodded his head, and Kusanagi held one up for him. He didn’t read it aloud, or even flip the pages for him, but in a way he felt better reading by himself, perusing the recipes and examining decadent images of cakes and pastries. Once more, his eyes began to close, his body shutting down like the overworked engine of a machine. Yet even when he felt sleep reach out to claim him, he chased it back with a shake of his head or a pinch on his thigh. No matter how many times he yawned or rubbed his eyes, he stayed awake long after he read the entire cookbook.

Kusanagi sat at the foot of the bed with his fingers pushed into his eye sockets.

"... another story?" Yuusaku asked, holding the book out for Kusanagi.

"How about some rest?" came the muffled reply.

Yuusaku shook his head.

So Kusanagi brought him another book, and then another. He must have had an endless supply of cookbooks in the cupboards, and throughout it all Yuusaku remained wide-eyed and overtired. Through the single window he spotted the moon hanging high in the sky and the stars twinkling like small diamonds. The moonlight reflected the pale tinge to both their cheeks.

After the fifth book, Kusanagi shook his head when he asked for some more. "Bedtime."

"No." He said it softly but clearly, tucking his chin down to his chest. He couldn’t disobey, not to this adult, but if he slept ... if he woke up somewhere else ...

"It's very late," Kusanagi said though. "And you are very tired."

Slowly, he brought the corner of the blanket up over his nose so that only his two green eyes peeked out.

"'m sorry," Yuusaku whispered to him.

A sigh—defeated, angry, upset.

Yuusaku felt tears prick at the corners of his eyes. He wanted to trust Kusanagi, the nice man that Ryouken trusted with all his heart. But Kusanagi reminded him of the Bad Man, and the Bad Man put him in the Bad Room and never let him play.

"How about a walk?"

He blinked in bewilderment.

"Come on," Kusanagi said, already standing up and dusting off his knees. "Neither of us are sleeping tonight anyways."

He slipped on the black beanie Kusanagi passed him, and zipped up the warm jacket Kusanagi bought for him at the thrift shop. The thick bricic hung off him, but once he stepped outside into the frigid, late-fall air, he appreciated the baggy sleeves. Not a single person wandered down the pathway. Yuusaku didn’t remember much of the first night sitting on the park bench, but he had thought they were tucked deep into a park. To his surprise, he saw the water stretched out just beyond them, and a long, windy road snaking along the coastline. Most beautiful of all was the sea, dappled with white stars as if the very same stars in the sky plopped into the water.

Kusanagi led him across the road and to the boardwalk. A smooth, steel fence separated the pathway from the sea, but he could peek between the bars and see the rocks below and the water stretching as far as the eye could see. Cold wind rushed past his cheeks, chilling his ears and nose; he tucked his ears into his beanie and pushed his nose down into the hoodie to stay warm.

"Let's walk," Kusanagi said.

And so they did, up and down the boardwalk. For the first lap, Yuusaku remained as quiet as he could be, eyes shifting from side to side. Rustling bushes and distant engine noises sent his heart racing, but after the third lap, he began to realise that no one was coming tonight. No one else was even  _ awake  _ tonight, all snug in their beds at home. Kusanagi didn’t say anything, but shame burned Yuusaku's ears.

"'m sorry."

"It's fine."  _ Click, clack; step, step.  _ "Bet you have pretty scary nightmares."

More terrifying than the scariest monsters in the world. More terrifying than all those monsters  _ combined. _

"Do you think, if you close your eyes, you'll have nightmares again?"

Most certainly. Every night he slept in the Bad Room, he dreamt of strangers yanking him from his bed and throwing him over a cliff. He dreamt of being chased down dark hallways and being hung from the tallest peak of a building. He dreamt of crying and no one coming for him, and then someone coming for him and him wanting to  _ run.  _ Every night, the nightmares were different, but they were nonetheless the most horrible part of the Bad Room—and even if he was no longer there, the bad dreams would surely return.

"If you have a nightmare again, you'll be back here though."

Yuusaku nodded. He knew very well he'd still be at the van, but then again, was that really where he ought to be? A safe place. A place where he wouldn’t have nightmares.

"If you have bad dreams, I'll come and get you—"

"No."

Kusanagi swallowed. "All right—but no matter what, I promise you, you won't return to that other place. I promise, I'll keep you safe."

With a blink of his eyes, Yuusaku saw the van in front of him. He yawned loudly, rubbing once more at his eyes. He waited for Kusanagi to turn around and start walking back.

"I'm going to go back to bed," he said, "but if you don't want to sleep, Yuusaku, that's fine. You just have to stay in the van, all right?"

No bedtime. No nightmares.

Once more, he climbed into bed and snuggled under the covers. His eyes remained as wide as dinner plates as Kusanagi headed off to his own bed at the back of the van, and Yuusaku waited with bated breath until he heard him lie down on the bed. Then he pulled the cookbook out from under the pillow and perused through it once more. As he read, the recipes began to blend together, and the kanji that he could read blurred until the page looked like one big mess of colours and inky print.

Finally, he fell asleep.

Only to wake up to gasping for breath, tears streaming down his face, his heart hammering in his chest like he'd run up and down and back and forth and he was still running even when he couldn’t feel anything else but the gasping and crying and heart-pounding—

"Yuusaku."

With a heavy cough, he sucked in a proper breath and gazed around. Ryouken crouched on the bed next to him, eyes wide and a hand hovering out as if unsure whether he should shake him or not. Kusanagi sat on his office desk, tucked back into the van. He looked sleepy too, and Yuusaku would have questioned it were he not preoccupied with catching his breath and stilling his racing heart. He took several slow, deep breaths until he felt his body settle, and then he rubbed the corner of the blanket under his eyes and nose.

"You OK?" Ryouken asked.

Teeth nibbled on the corner of his lip. He couldn’t even remember what dream he was having, only that it was so upsetting that he woke up in a panicked state like that.

"You all right?" Kusanagi said, kneeling down a bit. "Gave yourself quite a fright this morning."

_ Or something,  _ he thought, folding into the blankets.

"How about some breakfast to start you off?"

A plain bun appeared before him—no butter or condiments or anything. Yuusaku happily munched on it, but as he ate, he heard Kusanagi say to Ryouken, "Tonight, I'm going shopping for groceries, and the two of you are staying here. Right now, it's best you two stay home while I go out, all right? I won't be long."

"What if we—"

"I promise, I won't call anyone. I just need to buy you more food than bread and meat."

Yuusaku focused on chewing and swallowing, but Ryouken agreed with only minor reluctance. His empty paper plate sat next to his bed, and a couple crumbs stuck to the corners of his mouth. He looked far too awake and chipper, sitting among Kusanagi as if he were a well-known friend. Meanwhile, Yuusaku took as long as he could to eat his bread before he scooted onto the truck seat and Kusanagi packed up the futon and blankets. Both went into another cupboard in the back of the van, and Yuusaku wondered just how much storage this van had.

"Now," Kusanagi said, returning and patting his hands clean, "I work today. Here. In this van. That means you two need to either sit in the front seats or at the back of the van, and stay quiet while I work."

The hotdog business, he realised, but Ryouken still asked anyways.

"I'm a chef," Kusanagi said proudly, patting his chest with one strong fist. "You two have been eating my delicious cooking, minus the condiments and toppings. But I need this job to pay the bills, and I can't have you two wandering underfoot while I'm working—so you need to pick a spot and stay there, at least until the late afternoon when it's quieter."

As curious as he was about the back of the van, he picked the front seat and carried several cookbooks over to it. Ryouken picked several books too, and the two of them stack their reading in a single manuscript tower. Neither of them tucked into their reading though—instead, they both stared down the little hall at Kusanagi halfway through tying the knot on his apron. A printed dog faced outwards, the same art as on the van.

"Ca ... fe Nagi," Ryouken said, sounding out the syllables. "That this?"

"This hotdog truck? Yes." He cinched the knot behind him and patted out the apron. Next he set out the ingredients, some of which Yuusaku saw had already been prepared for the start of the day. The computer was flipped back too, so that the opposing wall contained only cutting boards and various containers of condiments and stacks of bagged buns. Lastly, he flipped open the front of the shop, and the entire van burst with warm, bright sunlight.

Outside, the world looked as lively as the city on fair day. People milled about the square which, now alight, looked rather spacious and well-decorated. When he peeked through the front window, lifting the window covering, he spotted two other food trucks parked nearby: a street-food shop and an Indian curry truck.

Just after the side window opened, people begin milling up to the window and ordering their food. With just Kusanagi working, he could only do so much, but he moved gracefully, worked efficiently, as he took orders and prepared food. Perched on the front seat, Yuusaku watches what he can only describe as a dance. Throughout the day, Kusanagi makes small talk with various customers, and he strains his ears to hear tendrils of their conversation. Ryouken grows bored after the first hour or so, returning to reading the cookbooks Yuusaku has already read thrice each; but he sits and watches Kusanagi work until he turns around and wipes the sweat from his brow.

"You two ready for lunch?"

Two hotdogs in buns on one plate and two buns on another.

"You want to try any toppings? Just on the side to try."

They both shook their heads and tucked down into the meal. Afterwards, Kusanagi returned back to work, and Yuusaku sat and watched him. He had had to sit and watch for hours, locked away in the Bad Room with no toys or books or any sort of entertainment. Yet in the van, there was almost  _ too much  _ to look at, and he took his time noticing the sights, smells, and sounds around him.

He hardly realised how long he'd been sitting there for until Ryouken bumped him with his shoulder. "Yuusaku?"

He flinched, then immediately softened when he realised only Ryouken and Kusanagi were around.

"You fall asleep sitting up?" Kusanagi said with a chuckle into his fist. He sobered and continued: "Shop's closed for the day, so I was thinking, before I head off to the shop ... if you want to bake something."

A fluttering feeling built in his heart. He lifted up one of the books for Kusanagi and received a gentle nod in return.

"How about you two pick out what treat you'd like and we'll bake it together."

"You want a dessert from that book?" Ryouken asked, tapping his fingers to the book.

Truthfully, he wanted a treat from the book under Ryouken's knees, but he nodded his head and flipped through the pages. Everything looked delicious from the cakes to the cupcakes, to the custards and puddings, to the extra-indulgent chocolate treats. His stomach rumbled just looking at the treats, and across from him, Ryouken seemed just as eager to tuck into a sweet dessert.

"I want something fruity," he said, cupping a cheek in one small, round hand. He let out a little sigh too, and his gaze lingered a moment longer on a particularly warm peach crumble.

"... this one?" Yuusaku asked, tapping his finger to the page.

"Do you want it?"

He held up the book for Kusanagi to see. He perused it for a moment and then rifled through the cupboards, pulling out flour and sugar and various other powders and spices, each in their own little tins. Finally, after much rifling and digging, he held up two silver cans.

"Peaches," he said triumphantly.

Ryouken let out a little cheer of joy, already scrabbling over the seat to get to the counter. Yuusaku moved more slowly, climbing up on the stools Kusanagi pulled out for them. Laid out on the counter were the ingredients—Kusanagi named them off for them—and the large, plastic bowl.

"We'll do this together," Kusanagi said. "So step one: peaches." He extracted the cans and helped them twist the opener so that the little silver lid popped off. Ryouken drained the peaches in a large strainer, then dumped them all around their baking dish. His pink tongue stuck out of the corner of his mouth as he tried to lay them in a single, flat sheet, but Kusanagi reminded him that since they were bumpy, the dish didn’t have to be particularly even.

Next came the crust. Kusanagi handed Yuusaku various containers and a scale, and together they weighed each of the ingredients and added them to the mixing bowl.

"Flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, and nutmeg," Kusanagi counted off. "Now blend it up."

Yuusaku stared at him, then at the spoon. He’d never cooked before, not even before he ended up in the Bad Room.

"Like this." Kusanagi churned his arm round and round as if stirring a large vat of soup.

Yuusaku copied him, watching as each of the ingredients blends together.

"Now for the egg," Kusanagi said and cracked it first on the rim of the bowl, and then dropped the yellow yolk into the mixture. Once more, Yuusaku stirred. This time, the batter began to stick together, and his eyes widened at the change.

"Crumbly."

"That'll be the topping."

Once the batter had been mixed, they poured it atop Ryouken's neatly-layered peaches. Kusanagi popped it into the oven, and both Ryouken and Yuusaku leapt off their seats and hurried to see it baking through the small, glass window.

"How long?" Ryouken asked.

Kusanagi showed them a small egg-timer with the dial set back to forty-five. "This will tell you how much time is left," he explained. "And when it goes off and after it cools, then we'll have dessert."

Ryouken returned to the books at once, but Yuusaku sat down in front of the oven and waited. However long forty-five minutes was, it couldn’t be forever. So he sat and watched the crust brown and the syrupy peaches bubble. He felt Kusanagi's eyes watching him, but he never said anything as he tidied up around the kitchen and prepared ingredients for the next day. When the timer beeped, Yuusaku's heart nearly leapt up his throat from the startle, but the panic washed over quickly as he remembered—the crumble was done.

Carefully, Kusanagi set the crumble down on a rack on the counter for it to cool. Yuusaku hurried back up to his seat. The smell—the sweet, delicate smell of peaches and sugar and cinnamon all blended together under a firm, browned crust. The added sugar Kusanagi sprinkled over the top gave it a sweeter topping, and Yuusaku's stomach rumbled even louder. Though Kusanagi told him the dessert would be a moment longer, he sat patiently at the counter until it was ready.

"Is this your favourite dessert?" Kusanagi asked.

"Dunno.” It had been so long since he ate any treats that he couldn’t remember what cake or ice cream or fruity crumbles tasted like.

"We'll be sure to give you a big piece!" Ryouken said, climbing up on the counter too.

Kusanagi passed out bowls for both of them and served up the treat. Honey-like syrup dripped from the peaches, and while the entire treat crumbled just like its namesake and hardly looked like the picturesque image in the cookbook, Yuusaku thought the treat looks even better toppled into his bowl. Hot steam billowed from the dessert, and he carefully spooned up his first bite and blew on it like Ryouken.

The very first taste was ... warm. Warm and sweet and oh so comforting that he could hardly stop himself from downing his second and third bites before he cooled them off. Ryouken all too eagerly devoured his own serving, alternating between blowing and swallowing.

Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted Kusanagi leaning back against the computer table, smiling at the top of them.

"Sir ..."

"Kusanagi," he gently reminded him.

"Kusanagi," Yuusaku tried again. "Aren't you going to ... to have a bite?"

A slow smile spread across Kusanagi's face, starting from the edge of his lips and drawing his entire visage brighter and warmer. "Maybe just a bite," Kusanagi said and served himself up a bowl. Yuusaku watched him take his first bite and chew thoughtfully, and then waited for the comment to come.

"Is it good?" he asked.

"Delicious. We should buy some ice cream to put on top of it, but just this—you two did good work."

The comment blossomed like a springtime flower in his heart, and happily Yuusaku took another bite. In the back of his mind he thought of the many, many recipes he'd seen. Someday, he'd like to cook those with Kusanagi.

Someday.

And when Kusanagi left to go shopping, he didn’t cry, and neither did Ryouken. They licked their spoons clean of the cobbler and perused through the cookbooks until he returned. After all, he’d return.

He’d always return.


	5. FIVE

Ryouken didn’t know how long it had been, but it felt like a week of living in the hotdog van. There was a calendar in here but he couldn’t remember what exact day he left, only that it was a day when Father had an office meeting. And since then, he hadn’t kept track of days and dates and weekends. But still, it felt like a significant amount of time had gone by, and that only made him all the more restless.

Kusanagi let them explore every nook and cranny of their home, and in just a day —or what felt like a day— he knew the entire layout of the van. There were no secret cupboards or locks on cabinets that he couldn’t open; Kusanagi let him peruse through his computer table and cookware without so much as a complaint. Sadly, there were no entertaining toys in the van either. Kusanagi's extensive collection of cookbooks only appealed to him for the first little while, and afterwards he grew bored of looking at pictures of cakes and soups and battered fish. Yuusaku never tired of reading them; he spent all day flipping through the same books even though he couldn’t read a word off their pages.

One day, Kusanagi brought more books from the library, but Ryouken read them all in a day too.

He wanted to go outside.

At his old home, he had a yard to play in and a big, wide living room to build Lego in. He'd spend all day playing in his room completing worksheets for schooling or in the main room playing with whatever his heart desired. He had an entire toybox of building materials, and he could spend a full afternoon creating a castle or city for his action figures to protect. Outside, he'd run in the grass or blow bubbles or practice his hopskotch and ski-rope.

None of those fun activities existed here. Once, Kusanagi gave him some cups, bowls, and plates to stack, and while entertaining, it wasn't quite the same as Lego, and he grew bored of it the next day. He'd never been outside of the van since the single trip to the store to purchase clothes; since then, Kusanagi has refused to let them leave.

_ Because Father will find me.  _ He knew it, and yet it still hurt to remain cooped inside.

Rubbing at his eyes, Ryouken yawned as he watches Kusanagi prepare for the day's customers. He spooned sauces into small containers and arranged various tubs of toppings in the refrigerated drawers. The stacks of hotdog buns leaned and toppled against the back shelf, supported by two large pots; the remaining pots sat on the boiler, warming the chili.

Though Kusanagi had long since put away his computer, his tablet remained on the table. Ryouken had seen the same cover ever since he left: "Famed Den City researcher's son missing!" and "Local Den City boy missing!" Both of them featured his and Yuusaku's portraits, though strangely despite Yuusaku being missing for much longer, his missing poster had only appeared at the same time as his own. But Kusanagi had never hidden the news from him, and so Ryouken had seen reports of people looking for him and Father pleading to the authorities to return him home.

It made him physically sick to see Father begging for him to return, and yet he couldn’t hate him. Not hate-hate, not with all his heart.

"Si—Kusanagi," he asked, "are the police still looking for me?"

He received only a noncommittal grunt; he was busy preparing for the day.

Ryouken pressed on. "And you didn't call anyone, right?"

"Never."

"And my father?"

"Didn't call him either." Kusanagi stopped puttering with ingredients on the counter and dusted his hands on his apron. "Has that still got you worried?"

"The article ..." Ryouken said, tapping his finger on the screen. Kusanagi's eyes widened in surprise and he muttered a curse under his breath, one Ryouken frequently heard Father say when he spilt tea on the floor.

"You don't have to worry about that," Kusanagi said, tone light and event. Nonetheless, Ryouken's spine prickled with unease. He wasn’t being told something; though young, he could spot a liar.

"But if he's looking for them, then will he ... will he come here?"

"He has no reason to," Kusanagi said. He snapped closed his tablet and slipped it into one of the drawers along the counter. "Now, what do you want for breakfast?"

Ryouken shook his head. "What if he does come here? Or the police?"

"No one is coming—"

"But what if ... what if I have to go home?"

Kusanagi's dark, bushy eyebrows settled low over his eyes, and lips pressed tight in concern. Ryouken curled himself together, tucking his chin down towards his chest. The tail end of his words came out as little more than a breath of air, and yet he knew Kusanagi heard him loud and clear.

"You think that might happen?"

"I dunno ..."

"You think you might go home?"

A tremor ran through his body, and his arms curl across his chest in a tight hug. "I don't know ..."

"Well"—Kusanagi lets out a heavy, gusty breath, settling back on the counter—"I don't know how that might happen, but I can promise you, Ryouken, that you are safe here and that no one is coming for you. But I'm curious ... why do you think the police are coming after you?"

Before he could hold the words back, he blurted out, "Because I did something bad." All one slurred together word, all rushing past his cracked lips. He hardly registered he did speak until he heard Kusanagi say, "Well,” and then Ryouken rushed over him, more frantic than ever before: "But nothing happened, not what you think or what anyone else thinks, and it's nothing."

"Ryouken—"

"I don't want to talk about it." Firm, unwavering, even when his throat seized up and he pushed himself as far as he could be into the chair. Up on the front seats, Yuusaku had become so quiet that he could have been a doll in the corner of the van, eyes wide and unblinking. Ryouken kept one hand braced on the back counter to steady himself, and repeated, as clearly as he could, "It's nothing."

Kusanagi backed off at once. "Won't press. But if you want to talk, I'll be here to listen, all right?"

Ryouken kept his mouth firmly closed, and for the rest of the day, he lied around staring at the ceiling and kicking his feet back and forth. On the next day, he gave up entirely. He was bored of kicking his feet back and forth. He was bored of lying around reading the same stack of books. He was bored of being cooped up in the same place, and he was sure Yuusaku felt the same way, even if he didn’t say more than a handful of words.

So he approached Kusanagi, crawling up on the chair next to the counter where Kusanagi was dicing up peppers and onions to sprinkle on hotdogs. He cradled his face in his hands, swinging his feet from side to sit behind him.

"Kusanagi ... can we go outside?"

"Well ..."

"I promise I'll be good. And Yuusaku—Yuusaku, you promise to be good too."

He peered up from his book and nodded once.

"The last time—"

"It won't be like last time!"

"Ryouken." Kusanagi cut off his prattle, and Ryouken sunk back as if stung. He chewed on his lip, waiting for Kusanagi to reprimand him. But instead, he heard, "Yes, we can go out again."

A pause and a blink. Were his ears filled with cotton, or did Kusanagi actually say ...

His warm, black toque fell into his hands, and hurriedly he pulled it over his head and tucked in his ears. As Kusanagi helped Yuusaku find his new boots, Ryouken slipped on his jacket and shoes himself. He was ready long before anyone else was set to go, and he skipped back and forth at the doorway. Every bone in his body buzzed with delight. After who knew how long, he could go outside.

Once Kusanagi was set, he opened the door for them. Ryouken bolted out first, clearing the steps and dashing out onto the pavement. A thin layer of ice coated the ground, and the green grass around the square was frozen in place. It crunched under his boots as he marched around the grass while Kusanagi encouraged Yuusaku down the two steps.

He hurried back to Yuusaku and held a hand out for him. "Come on, Yuusaku," he said, clasping Yuusaku's little hand in his own. "Let's walk together. It's all right." Yuusaku nodded and clung tightly to him. With Yuusaku in tow, Ryouken couldn’t hop or leap like he wanted to, but he tugged him along the sidewalk as they followed Kusanagi down the road. Vaguely, he recognised the street, but Father always drove him to parks, so the walk on the pavement felt like a new trip until he spotted the playground. With the chill and frost, no one else had come to play, and some of the equipment had melting puddles on it. A purple slide, slick with ice, looked even slipperier than before, and the steps leading up to the climbing structure had icicles hanging beneath them.

Kusanagi clicked his teeth together as he headed to one of the many stone benches, but instead of sitting on the wet, cold stone, he stood beside it and crossed his arms.

Just as Ryouken cleared over the step, Yuusaku tugged his arm back, rooting his heels into the frozen wood chips.

"Come on, the slide looks fun," Ryouken said, giving Yuusaku another tug.

Yuusaku wriggled his hand free though and at once set off towards Kusanagi. He parked himself right on the bench, little legs dangling in the faint, chilly breeze. His green eyes peeked out from the top of his black scarf cinched tightly around his neck.

Sighing, Ryouken climbed up onto the jungle gym, first the stairs and then across the bridge. With the slide wet and slippery, he only dangled his feet down it and banged once to shake off the heavy icicles. Then he wandered around the perimeter of the park, past the swing set and the frozen sandbox and the merry-go-round with squeaky hinges. With no one else around and Yuusaku refusing to budge from the bench, he could only play so much by himself.

The miracle came when another child showed up. He looked about the same age as Ryouken with a messy yellow moptop of hair and a bright smile. He tugged on his father's hand, leading him over to the swings. Ryouken considered going up to him and introducing himself, perhaps even with a pseudonym, when the kid hopped up on the swing and his father began to push him. Up, down; back, forth. The kid bounced his legs, not even trying to pump himself. The father laughed along with him, and the two of them chatted amicably about school and sports and whatever else.   
  
Ryouken stood in the middle of the playground, hands curled in fists. He tucked his head down low, crossed his arms, and then marched back to Kusanagi and Yuusaku. With a sigh, he climbed up onto the cold, stone bench. A heavy chilly seeped into his legs and bottom, and only after a minute did he shiver and wrap his arms around himself. Next to him, Yuusaku looked wholly unbothered.   
  
Kusanagi asked him something, but Ryouken only nodded vaguely. He could see the boy, playing with his kind father. They both looked so happy and carefree together, and the father—he looked a bit like Father, tall with hair around his chin. But it wasn’t Father. He ... he almost wished it was.   
  
"Ryouken?"   
  
He didn’t answer.   
  
"Do you want to play anymore?    
  
With a sniffle, he shook his head.

After a minute, Kusanagi started walking. Yuusaku slipped off the seat and followed after him, and Ryouken moved last, dragging his feet on the pavement. The cold wind bit at his cheeks and nose, stinging at his raw eyes. He followed Kusanagi with his head bowed, and he only knew they'd made it back to the van when he heard the slight creak of the door opening. Yuusaku climbed in first, returning right to his usual spot on the front seat with his piles of books. But Ryouken hungback, feet planted on the icy ground.   
  
"Ryouken."   
  
"Don't want to go inside."   
  
He heard Kusanagi sigh, and worry churned in his belly. He didn’t like saying no. He didn’t like disobeying or being wrong or getting in trouble, and yet—he couldn’t return to the van, that stifling, boring place where he shouldn't be. He should never have ran away, not him, just Yuusaku, and now he'd only made Father worry more and if he ever returned home he'd be in more trouble that he could possibly imagine.   
  
He didn’t realise he was crying until the hot tears burned away the little snowflakes on his cheeks. His sobs were silent, his face dipped down into the collar of his jacket, and the only sign that he was crying was the slight shake of his shoulders. Still, somehow Kusanagi saw and crouched in front of him.   
  
"Let's go inside and get warm."   
  
"N-no."   
  
"Let's have some hot chocolate."   
  
"N-no."   
  
"Ryouken—"   
  
He spun around, all intent of running somewhere, anywhere, some place where he wouldn’t upset anyone and where he wouldn’t be in trouble—only as soon as he moved his feet gave out from under him, sliding on the slick ice covering the pavement. He had but a second to throw out a hand, and yet he still fell painfully on his side. Dirty rocks clung to his open palms and a sliver of ice stuck to his lip where he bonked it on the ice. Then came the stinging, burning pain, and he let out a single, wheezing howl.   
  
Through the pain, he heard Kusanagi move closer.   
  
"No, no—" He swatted a hand to the side, hoping he brushed him away. The last thing he wanted was someone hovering over him.   
  
The pain throughout his body dulled, replaced by a firm ache everywhere. Most of the pain came from his face, and when he brushed his hand over his cheek, he felt blood. Blood. Red, sticky blood on his fingers coming from somewhere.   
  
"Kusa—" He turned, but the rest of the words didn’t leave his lips before he saw Kusanagi's horrified expression. Tears welled up in Ryouken's eyes once more, and let out one weak sob.   
  
Kusanagi had long since shoved his hands in his pockets and pulled out a tissue. He came close and cleaned Ryouken's face, wiping around his cheeks and nose. Then he pulled out a second clean tissue and settled it under Ryouken's nose.   
  
"Tilt your head forward," he said. A gentle hand braced him around the neck, but as Ryouken stiffened, he heard Kusanagi say, "I'm just holding your head, you're all right. Just take a deep breath."   
  
He tried, but it only resulted in a chesty cough that quickly turned into another sob. He tried again, sucking a breath deep into his lungs. Kusanagi kept the tissue held under his nose. The hand on his neck slowly shifted down to his back and rubbed soothing circles through his jacket. As shaky as his breaths came, he tried to breathe with the circles; one rotation, one breath, until finally his lungs no longer felt crushed inside him. Soon only his nose hurt, and the cold seemed to be more uncomfortable than anything else.   
  
Kusanagi lowered the tissue.   
  
"There, all better."   
  
Ryouken bowed his head in shame at once. Whether from the cold or the embarrassment, his cheeks felt hot and pink.    
  
"Sorry, sir."   
  
"I'm not upset, Ryouken."   
  
"I don't want to go inside."   
  
A sigh, and then Kusanagi said, "How come?"   
  
"I just don't."   
  
"Are you going to sit outside all day then? It's cold."   
  
He sunk further into his jacket, until only his eyes peeked out, and the tops of his ears caught the remaining chill. All too soon, the chill seeped through his layers and into his bones, and he shivered harshly. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted another kid walking with their parent, and whether with their father or mother, he couldn’t see, but his heart clenched that that lucky kid was with their parent.   
  
"I did something bad, Mr. Kusanagi."   
  
He heard Kusanagi settle down next to him on the cement, boots scritching over the little ice flakes. "Something bad?"   
  
"Very bad."   
  
"And what did you do?"   
  
"Can't say."

"Is it because you ran away?"

Yes.

"Is it  _ why  _ you ran away?"

_ Yes. _

With a soft crunch, Kusanagi settled forward on the icy pavement. Without a hat or thick jacket, his cheeks had an extra-bright hue to them, and the wind attacked any and all of his bare skin. "You did what you had to do, all right? You were brave—I know you are. And you don’t have to tell me what happened, all right, Ryouken? But I promise you that you did the right thing, and I’m glad you came to me—or I found you—when you were in trouble.”

Mutely, he nodded.

“Now, it's very cold outside, and so you need to come inside. You'll get sick."

"Maybe ..." He kicked his feet back and forth.

"Tomorrow," Kusanagi said, rubbing at his chin, "do you want to go to another park?"

Another park with another child and father? Never. Ryouken didn’t want to see another father in his life.

"Or we can stay home and bake something ..."

"Why won't Yuusaku play with me?" The question even surprised Ryouken, but he blurted it out regardless of whatever Kusanagi had been trying to say to him. It took Kusanagi several moments to answer, and when he did, he sounded the words out on unsure lips.

"Well ... you see ... he's scared. Like you."

"'m not scared ..."

"Well, Yuusaku is. He's very frightened about what has been going on, and that's why he doesn't want to play. It'll just take him longer to feel better."

"Can we make him better? Like with medicine?"

"I think he just needs time," Kusanagi said. "Do you know what he likes to do?"

The Yuusaku he met before he was trapped down in the basement—that Yuusaku liked to play duel monsters. He played the piano too, and he was outgoing and considerate and kind. He probably liked books too, but more than that he liked going for walks and being out in the open air. But then this Yuusaku—this new and sad and terrified Yuusaku—liked none of that. He liked books, sure, but he never asked for new ones or wanted to talk about anything he'd read or done. He just sat quietly and read.

"How about a picnic?" Kusanagi said.

"Picnic?"

"A day out for all of us. A day for the three of us. We'll pack a lunch and go wandering on the beach. It's cold, but I'm sure we could find a place to make a little fire. How ... how does that sound? I'm sure you'd like to get out of the house more."

Cheeks burning, he ducked his head down into his collar. Still, his heart felt warm and fuzzy, and the tightness in his chest had fizzled away.

"I want to."

"I'm glad. Now let's head inside and get warm."

Gently, Kusanagi's hand wrapped around his shoulders. He stiffened at first, but the touch felt warm and reassuring, and so he leaned into the embrace as he headed up the stairs into the hotdog truck.


	6. SIX

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a very minor warning for this chapter: there is a slight moment of vomiting, nothing descriptive or lengthy, but since i know this can be unpleasant/upsetting to read, please take care with this chapter if it bothers you.  
> also this is a two-part Yuusaku POV chapter, so yay, more Yuusaku ^^

He woke up with his heart in his throat and his eyes filled with tears. The blanket wrapped around him like a tight, choking vice, and he scrambled away from it, kicking up bedsheets and pillows and knocking Ryouken awake in all his panic. A "sorry" rushed to his lips but didn’t make it out of his mouth as he clung to a nearby cupboard handle, chest heaving with each laboured breath. He took a moment longer to settle, and by then, Kusanagi had fumbled out of his bed. When Yuusaku saw him, his ears burned with shame.

Another nightmare. He could hardly remember  _ what  _ he was dreaming about, only that he awoke to such immense panic that he had to leap off the bed and ground himself on the cupboard door.

Slowly, he disentangled his fingers from the handle and tucked them behind his knees.

"Another nightmare?" Kusanagi said.

Yuusaku nodded his head, sniffling into a hand.

Ryouken yawned loudly, stretching his arms above his head. "Some bad dream," he said, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. He looked wide awake afterwards, and began  to pull off the sheets.

As if made of air, Kusanagi slipped aside and began to put away the blankets and pillows and, when Ryouken scrambled off the bed, the futon too. Yuusaku watched him with wide eyes, waiting for Kusanagi to sigh or moan or do anything to show his displeasure. He must have been upset with him—every night he'd had a nightmare, sometimes twice a night. Kusanagi said he never slept for long, and that he needed more rest, but when he closed his eyes, he saw dark beings, shadowy rooms, terrors that he could hardly fathom to remember.

"Sorry."

"It's nothing to be sorry for, Yuusaku. And let's get you changed too."

Again. Another accident.

He headed into the bathroom to change, and when he returned, Kusanagi was scrolling through his news feed on his computer. Ryouken sat on the cardboard box by the desk, propped up so that he too could see the screen. He kept asking Kusanagi about the news and about programs, but Yuusaku only vaguely paid attention; some of the words he didn’t even understand, and so he crawled back towards where the bed used to be, now just a cold, empty space.

"Yuusaku." Kusanagi swung around in his seat, a faint smile on his lips. "Let's go picnicking today."

At his side, Ryouken perked up like a jack-in-the-box. "Today?"

"Just like I said.”

Yuusaku chewed worriedly on his lips. Picnicking would involve going outdoors, and the previous two times he'd left, he'd only felt sorrow and terror. Even when Kusanagi took him and Ryouken to the park, he couldn't do more than sit on the bench and watch for any hidden figures in the distance. The Bad Man could still come for him if he went outside, and no doubt he was looking hard for him.

Carefully, Kusanagi crouched down next to him. Yuusaku stiffened, but he eased back as he watched Kusanagi open various cookbooks around his bed, flipping to pages of sandwiches and side dishes. "You've probably looked at these more than I have. What would you like to eat on the picnic? Pick a couple and we'll make them together."

He'd read the books front to back at least a dozen times each but never bothered to learn the names for anything. Nonetheless, he perused through the books, stopping at a page of a mild coleslaw and anther page of delicious finger sandwiches. He liked the littler dishes, ones that he could eat more and more of without ever feeling full.

"Any desserts?" Ryouken asked, crawling over to see the pages too. 

A fruity dessert, that was what Ryouken liked best. In the books, he found decadent fruit flans and cherry-topped cupcakes; sponge cakes with fruit syrup; and an entire collection of fruity icings and fruit-shaped arrangements. When Ryouken didn’t leap onto any of the pictures, he chose one for him: sponge cake, both fluffy and dense with a thin, raspberry drizzle to garnish.

"You could be a chef someday," Kusanagi said. "Just like me."

"Do chefs cook hotdogs?" Ryouken asked.

"'Course they do—who else would be cooking them?"

Satisfied, Ryouken settled back. Kusanagi began pulling ingredients from the shelves, all foodstuffs he’d acquired during the last shop. Any time Yuusaku didn’t think they would have that ingredient, Kusanagi pulled the very same item from the shelf, holding it aloft like a prized trophy. Soon, all the ingredients sat in several piles on the counter. Kusanagi rolled his sleeves up and turned to them.

"Well? You're not going to make me do all the work, are you?"

Hurriedly, Ryouken scrambled from his spot and climbed up to help Kusanagi butter bread and arrange the lettuce, tomatoes, and pickles Kusanagi had begun cutting. The two of them worked so efficiently that Yuusaku doubted they even needed his help—until Kusanagi beckoned him over.

"This coleslaw won't make itself. Here, stir up the mayo onto the lettuce."

He remembered how to stir. Using the large, wooden spoon, he mixed up the dish, slopping mayo over every shred of lettuce and carrot and onion, until the dish really did look like it belonged in the cookbook. When he was done, Kusanagi passed him another mixing bowl and spoon and instructed him to stir this too. However, rather than soppy dressing, the bowl was full of dry, powdery ingredients that tickled his nose.

"Sponge cake, best made from scratch," Kusanagi said, pouring wet ingredients into another bowl. He passed this one to Ryouken who happily stirred it too. "We'll have to wait for all of this to cook, but when it's done, we'll take it with us warm, and I'm sure the chill will cool it down for us."

True to his word, once everything had cooked, they packed it up in a large, wicker picnic basket, the likes Yuusaku had only seen in fairy tales. Where Kusanagi had hid such a basket he didn’t know, but his heart pitter-pattered as he put the wrapped dishes into the basket and sealed it up.

The closer they got to leaving, the more energetic Ryouken became; he bounced on his heels and twirled his arms from side to side, no doubt eager to leave the house. Though Ryouken hadn’t said much to him, Yuusaku knew he was bored in the van. Frankly, he was bored too, but if he left, the Bad Man would come for him. The Bad Man would never come for Ryouken. Why? He didn’t know. But if Ryouken went outside, he'd be safe. He'd cry because he was sad, but he'd be safe.

As Ryouken yanked on his boots and jacket, Yuusaku fumbled with each button on his coat. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted Kusanagi watching him, but he didn’t say anything as Yuusaku took his slow time dressing himself. He let him drag it out for as long as he could, and at last, Yuusaku waited at the door.

_ Thump-thump  _ went his heart in his chest.  _ Pant-pant  _ went his shaky breaths.

"A picnic." Ryouken breathed the words out between quivering lips. At his sides, his fingers itched together.

"We're walking over," Kusanagi said, "so hats on and hold hands."

Ryouken snatched up his hand.

When the doors open, Yuusaku tumbled out with him. The first breath of air pierced his lungs, as if ice particles in the air had slipped down his throat. He coughed out a breath and blinked his eyes. Sunlight. Bright sunlight that somehow hadn’t warmed the world and only caught on the ice littering the ground like a thousand ashes. Beneath him, his feet slipped and slid, and Ryouken too swung his arms around like a windmill as he tried to regain his balance.

In the end, they both crashed to the ground in a pile of limbs.

"Frosty out today," Kusanagi said, a wry smile tucked into the corner of his mouth.

Blushing, Yuusaku ducked his head. A hand extended to help him up, but he climbed up on his own legs and brushed the front clinging to his corduroys and winter jacket. Ryouken had snow in his hair, near-impossible to see against the whiteness of the strands, but bits of sunlight caught on the icy shards.

"Snow?" Ryouken asked.

"Frost—no snow yet." Blowing on his hands, Kusanagi chuckled mirthlessly. "Bet it's below zero today though. Here, zip your jackets all the way up."

Yuusaku yanked on his zipper, but the cold still slipped down his jacket and settled in his bones.

Once Kusanagi deemed them ready, they set off down the road, away from the house on the hill that Yuusaku remembered running down, and out to where the road zigzagged round the coastline. A wide, cement path followed the road round, and though people wandered down it, bundled up in thick scarves and jackets, no one paid any attention to them. Yuusaku still kept his head down and his mouth and nose tucked into his scarf, so that only his green eyes peeked out.

Still, he marveled at the water. With the low temperatures, ice had collected along the boardwalk, and at least a foot or two wide sheet of ice floated atop the starry waters. Bits of ice floated further back too like small paper stars.

A fierce gust of winds sent him tucking back into his scarf.

"Where are we going?" Ryouken asked, skipping next to Kusanagi.

"The beach," Kusanagi told him.

"Here?"

"Further round the bend—it's a pretty quiet spot."

Panic coursed through his veins. A quiet spot? A secret spot? A place where he'd be in trouble, where he'd get caught. He hardly remembered when he ... when he got caught last time, following Ryouken home, talking about Duel Monsters and school, and then someone  _ grabbed him— _

"Yuusaku, do you want to hold the basket?"

He blinked up at Kusanagi. His extended hand held out the wooden handle, scratched in places but otherwise of sturdy quality. No doubt the basket weighed more than him, but Kusanagi still held it out.

"We can carry it together."

He shook his head, tucking his hands into his sleeves.

"Or do you and Ryouken want to carry it together?"

At his side, Ryouken chirruped with glee. "Let's carry it, let's carry it, Yuusaku!"

Weakly, he reached out and takes the handle. Ryouken took the other side, and together they carried the basket lopsidedly down the street. Much faster than him, Ryouken nearly tugged him down the pathway, but Yuusaku held steady and followed along. He kept one eye peeled on Kusanagi, waiting to see how he reacted, but he walked with them, hands shoved in his jacket pockets.

_ Not a bad man,  _ Yuusaku told himself.  _ He's not a bad man. _

At the curve of the road, the landscape vastly changed as if they wandered into an alternate dimension. The coast cut in further than he imagined—an entire chunk appeared bitten off by some aquatic monster, and while ice littered the area, through the white dust Yuusaku spotted steps leading down to a miniature beach access. They couldn't swim, much less hide from the fierce, chilly gale, but Kusanagi led them down the slippery, concrete steps and onto the single slice of beach. Frozen sand crackled beneath his toes. Bits of sea came in with the tide, but thick ice plates floated along too, so large and dense that he supposed they could step on them.

"Here?" Ryouken asked, turning round to face Kusanagi.

"And there." Kusanagi pointed along the coast. To his surprise, Yuusaku saw more sand, an entire strip of the ocean that they could wander along. Frost, ice, and snow littered the ground, but the deserted beach looked otherwise neat and peaceful.

Instead of setting up camp at the closest point, Kusanagi guided them down the shore, even further back. Yuusaku snuggled deep into his jacket and only peered out when he bumped into Ryouken.

"Let's rest up here," Kusanagi said, gesturing to a carved out, felled tree. The tree must have been huge, as thick as a small car—and yet the interior had been neatly carved out to create a sizable opening. Thick roots wrapped around the opening, creating a canopy that shielded them like the roof of a tent.

At once, Kusanagi got to work, setting out the blanket. He pulled a small, electric lamp from the basket too and set it in the centre as a sort of artificial campfire. Then he beckoned Yuusaku and Ryouken closer.

"Come sit unless you want to explore."

After the adventure, Yuusaku wanted nothing more than to sit by the fire and wait until they went home, but Ryouken dropped the basket and pulled him out towards the waves. "Let's explore, Yuusaku."   
  
"Stay together," Kusanagi told them. "Where I can see you."   
  
They didn’t head out far, just closer to the water. The cold sand crunched under their toes, and they stopped just at the first sheets of ice laid out along the banks. Ryouken toed them with the tip of his shoes.   
  
"Our feet'll get wet," he murmured, more to himself than Yuusaku, but he still heard him clearly even over the slight breeze.   
  
Yuusaku glanced down at his own toes. There wasn’t much to do at the beach besides sit next to the fire, but if he crouched down by the sand ...   
  
"Sandcastle."   
  
"Hm?" Ryouken glanced over his shoulder.   
  
"Sand ... castle," Yuusaku said. He stuck his toe into the sand, tugging it free from the binding ice. Then he shoved his fingers into the ground. The first few seconds stung and burned at his exposed skin, but he quickly adjusted to the minor pain. He pat the wet sand together into a ball and held the shape together. Not a sandcastle, not even a tower or moat to go around the castle ... but something.   
  
Ryouken's face lit up like the stars in the sea.   
  
"Let's build something together."   
  
Dropping to his knees, Ryouken began digging the moat first, using his hands as scoops and shovels. Yuusaku crouched down too and began patting small, sandy balls. Where the balls would go, he didn’t know, but Ryouken kept adding them to a pile in the centre of the moat, so he continued on. From time to time, he heard Kusanagi shuffling behind them, but he never left the warmth of the heater.   
  
Eventually, the cold hurt—stung, burnt, more than it ever did before. Yuusaku blew on his pink hands, rubbing them together. Every bit of exposed skin felt raw. A shiver ran from his head to his toe, and he ducked his face into his jacket as he sneezed softly.   
  
"Cold?" Ryouken said with a laugh.   
  
He ran his arm under his nose, the barest of a laugh in his throat. "Bit."   
  
Ryouken brushed off his hands and stretched up to full height. He reached back down, one hand outstretched.   
  
Yuusaku blinked.    
  
"Let's go warm up by Kusanagi."   
  
Slowly, he followed Ryouken back into the warmth. The felled tree kept the heat nicely tucked into the alcove, and as soon as he was settled round the space heater, he unthawed. The stinging pain eased from his skin, and when he flexed his fingers, his joints no longer creaked like rusty mechanical parts.   
  
"How about something to eat?" Kusanagi asked.   
  
Another blink.   
  
"Nothing warm—none of us were thinking that far ahead—but ... how about something sweet?"   
  
Sponge cake. He gratefully accepted the little plate, arranged with a sliver of cake and thick syrup. Using his spoon, he pushed off the syrup and sucked on the cake. Cold, but filling. Ryouken all but devoured his first and second slices, and even Kusanagi helped himself to a serving.   
  
Then Kusanagi started talking. Conversationally.   
  
"You two ever been to the beach before?"   
  
"Loads of times," Ryouken said."I used to go with—I used to go there lots."   
  
"And you, Yuusaku?"   
  
He shrugged a shoulder. His memories from before the Bad Room were hazy at best, a mess of vague feelings and sensations he couldn't even put a name to. Who knew if he ever went somewhere before the Bad Room, of if he even had a life. He could hardly remember the people in his life much less the places he visited.    
  
After a minute, Kusanagi moved along: "What did you like to do on the beach?"   
  
"Swim, make sandcastles, eat shaved ice."   
  
"Yuusaku?"   
  
"Build a sandcastle." The only thing he could remember, and only because in one of the cookbooks there was a picture of a sand castle next to a beach picnic blanket. His and Ryouken's sandcastle looked nothing like the one in the book: lopsided, made of frozen sand mixed with rocks and sticks rather than the golden, pristine sand from the beach.    
  
If Kusanagi remembered the sandcastle from the cookbook, he didn’t say.   
  
"I saw you two made a lovely sandcastle," he said instead. "It's a sandcastle, right? Not a sand spaceship or—"   
  
"Yuusaku, what is it?" Ryouken interrupted, rubbing at his chin.    
  
"Sandcastle."   
  
"Looks more like a sand pyramid ... with rocks instead of bricks."   
  
Knees up to his chest. Face hidden behind his legs.   
  
"I rather like it. You two did well."   
  
Over the tops of his knees, he saw Kusanagi smiling thoughtfully at the sandcastle. Neither made of neat sand nor artfully arranged, it hardly deserved the praise. Still, Yuusaku felt his heart swell a bit, and he tucked his chin atop his knees and relaxed his arms.   
  
"It looks really good," Ryouken said with a decisive nod.    
  
"Where's the flag though?"   
  
"Flag?"   
  
Kusanagi pointed to the top of the sandcastle. "The flag at the top."   
  
Yuusaku glanced round. Nowhere was there a "flag," nor anything that could make a flag. However, just outside of the felled tree was a single, white shell, no bigger than the palm of his hand. He scooped it up from the frozen sand. No cracks or blemishes; miraculously, none of them stepped on it when they trekked around the sand. Carefully, he brushed the ice and sand from the surface. Atop the sandcastle it went, right at the peak.   
  
The flag at the top.   
  
"Even better than a flag." Ryouken scrambled out of the felled tree too, pulling more shells off the ground to stick around the castle. At his feet were more pieces too like little stars.

  
Kusanagi was smiling at him—a proper, warm smile without a hint of ill-will. He looked nothing like the Bad Man, and this looked nothing like the Bad Room.   
  
"It's lovely," he said. "Now come on, come eat and get warm. We'll build another sand castle."   
  
Back to the felled tree. Back to warmth and comfort and coziness, tucked under a thick blanket Kusanagi brought for them. He and Ryouken ventured out to the beach several times, out to the waves and back to the heater, until he felt cold all the way down to his toes and he couldn't hide the shivering any longer. Only then did he stop shaking his head when Kusanagi asked him, "Ready to go home?"   
  
For the entire walk back, they followed the yellow street lamps down the shadowy path. Yuusaku clung close to Ryouken and the basket, keeping up the pace even when his legs began to drag. To his side, the moon glowed across the silvery water, and the stars in the sky reflected on the water's surface. He saw the sight even when they turned off towards the truck, but just as Yuusaku headed towards the door, Kusanagi spoke up.   
  
"Yuusaku, hang on just a second."   
  
He paused, hand still clinging to the basket handle.   
  
"Ryouken, head on inside. I'll be there in a moment to start making dinner. Yuusaku, come here."   
  
Ryouken wriggled the basket free, but Yuusaku kept his feet planted in the ground. A talk. Kusanagi wanted to talk with him.   
  
"Do you want to sit on the bench?"   
  
He shook his head.    
  
"All right, well ... tomorrow, the two of us are going to go to the doctor's. Together."   
  
Doctor. A strong shiver ran down his spine, and Yuusaku tucked his hands under his arms. There was a doctor in the Bad Room—someone wearing a long, white coat who would check his height and weight and temperature.    
  
"We're just going to talk to the doctor together," Kusanagi continued, "about your nightmares."   
  
"Night ... mares?"   
  
"Why you wake up crying every morning, and why it's so hard for you to go to bed."   
  
Prickles ran up and down his arms. Sometimes, he dreamt of the doctor in the Bad Room, and in those nightmares he wasn’t even in the Bad Room, but on a table with a knife—   
  
His throat seized up and he lets out a dry cough.   
  
"Hey, hey—Yuusaku, it's going to be all right."   
  
He shook his head. Whatever Kusanagi said, it wouldn’t be all right with a doctor. He didn’t want to lie on the table and have the doctor take his temperature. He didn’t want to go anywhere, but especially not a place like that.    
  
Another cough caught in his throat and tears pool in his eyes.   
  
"Yuusaku—Yuusaku look here, at me, it'll be all right. The doctor wants to make it better."   
  
"N-no ..." He pushed his face into his hands, blocking out the light and the dark and the way Kusanagi stared at him like something was wrong, he'd done something wrong—   
  
"Are you scared of the doctor?"   
  
Back and forth, back and forth, he shook his head until his mind spun.   
  
"I used to be a little scared of the doctor too, believe it or not. I don't like hospitals either , and I don't think there are many people that really  _ like  _ them. But there are doctors there that can make you feel better, make you feel happier. It's no fun to cry and feel sick all the time, and I bet if the two of us went together, the doctor could find something to help you, like ... like a magic potion."

"Don't ... want," Yuusaku said, rubbing his face deeper into his hands.

"What if Ryouken came too?"

_ No. _

"What if we all went to the doctor's together and we all got checked up?"

"N-no, sir ..."

He heard Kusanagi sigh above him, and his heart clenched painfully, trapped in an iron vice. Kusanagi was mad. Kusanagi was very, very mad and he was going to hurt him—

"What if the doctor came here? Do you want to talk to the doctor here?"

No. No, no, no. Fat tears began to roll down his face and cheeks, clumping at the tip of his chin. Ice prickled along his exposed skin, and his pink, shivering hands itched in the weather. After the wild day, he felt like he could sleep the month away, and his head spun back and forth, faster and faster. A muted sob caught in his throat, but when he coughed, something very different happened.

Sick.

He coughed over his knees, spitting foul acid and salad and cake all over his shoes and the pavement. Vaguely, he heard Kusanagi gasp, but he started coughing again, tucking further into himself. His stomach ached and pained, and more tears pricked at his eyes. He hadn’t been sick in ages, not since before the Bad Room, but the queasy feeling and growing aches were familiar; he'd been sick like this before.

Ahead of him, Kusanagi stood back, face pale and eyes as wide as the moon. The moonlight exaggerated his bright features. Weakly, Yuusaku sunk deeper into himself.

"I''m sorry, sir ..."

But Kusanagi didn’t get upset. He didn’t walk away, or shout. He moved closer, and Yuusaku felt himself flinch up, but he only felt a cool hand settle across his brow. He twisted his head to the side, spitting the gross taste from his lips, but Kusanagi only held his head more firmly, pressing his palm across his forehead.

"Let's get you cleaned off now."

"I'm sorry—"

"There's nothing to be sorry for, Yuusaku. You're just sick. Come on, let's get cleaned up."

The hand moved to his shoulder, guiding him off the bench. He flinched at every minute touch, but the thought of opening his mouth and crying made his stomach churn angrily. He felt ill and weak, and his vision spun as Kusanagi led him back into the hotdog van. Ryouken waited on the computer chair, kicking his feet back and forth. He let out a little "oh" when he spotted them both and hopped down from his perch.

"What'd he get on him?"

Yuusaku frowned, but in the corner of his eye he spotted more dark smears. Oh. His plan to spit over his knees spectacularly failed and sick coated his entire chest and legs. Shame burned on his already-hot cheeks, but Kusanagi said nothing as he led him into the bathroom. As soon as he stepped over the door slip, he dug his heels in.

"I do, I do."

"You're si—"

"I-I do ..."

Kusanagi sighed into his fist. "All right, clean off."

The door closed and he sunk down to the floor. A mess. A huge mess the likes he hadn’t made in ages, even though he'd made plenty of messes prior to today. How Kusanagi hadn’t thrown them out was beyond him. Carefully, he peeled off the soiled garments. His hot face leaned against the side of the tub, the only cool part of the bathroom. Each time his stomach gurgled, he curled into himself and jammed a hand into his gut.

Eventually, he reemerged in new pyjamas. Kusanagi sat at the computer table, head in his hands. He leapt to his feet when Yuusaku closed the door.

"Temperature first," he said, and moved forward with some small equipment poised between his fingers.

Yuusaku jumped back, throwing a hand out. "No—"

He stopped Kusanagi, just long enough for him to spot the equipment in his hand: a thermometer, small and made of plastic. He held it out for Yuusaku to see, twirling it back and forth. "A thermometer," Kusanagi told him. "You have a fever and I want to see how high it is. Come here, it goes under your arm.”

"I d-do."

Sighing, Kusanagi passed him the thermometer. He held the cool plastic under his arm, shivering like a leaf in the wind. He doubted he temperature should register high—he felt like he swam in the frozen ocean—but when the device beeped Kusanagi stared at it with a deep frown marring his face.

"Is he sick?" Ryouken asked, stretching up on his toes.

"Just a bit," Kusanagi said. He peered over the top of the device, fixing Yuusaku with his stare. "Let's get you warm, all right? Under the blankets."

A fierce shiver ran down Yuusaku's spine. He shook his head though.

"You think you're going to be sick again?"

Nothing in him felt right, but if he lied down, he'd only feel worse. He didn’t want to feel warm, not when he already felt  _ too warm  _ but he was  _ shivering.  _ His head spun, and his stomach flipped back and forth.

Kusanagi ran his hands through his hair, back and forth as if he was trying to comb out half the strands. He pinched and pulled it, and at last dragged his hands over his long face. "You don't have to go to sleep, but at least come sit down and look at books with me. I need to keep an eye on your fever."

At the mention of books, Yuusaku spotted the stack of cookbooks next to the bed. He hadn’t read many of his books today. Careful not to make his stomach churn any more than it already was, he slipped over to the bed and settled atop one of the pillows. Kusanagi tucked in next to him, and though he felt himself stiffen at the contact, Kusanagi was ... warm. Warm and cozy like a radiator, but somehow not as hot as the blanket or his jacket.

"There we go," Kusanagi said, tucking the blanket over his legs. "Not too warm, all right, but we don't want you to get sicker. Do you ... do you feel like you're going to throw up?"

"I don't know ..."

"That's all right, I've got this here ..." He reached up over the desk and set down a small basin. "If you feel sick, you can get sick here until we get to the bathroom. All right? Don't worry, you'll feel better soon."

With the way his head and stomach felt, he doubted it. He tucked further against Kusanagi and pulled the first book off the pile. Though he'd read it a dozen times, he still found new details on the page: new photos of desserts, new kanji that he tried to read. Slowly, he dragged his finger over the characters as if reading the words. Ryouken might have been able to read some of them, but Kusanagi would have been able to read them all.

Ryouken shuffled over next to him. He kept his distance, settling down on the bed with his own book. However, rather than peer through it like Yuusaku did every day, he held it out for Kusanagi. "Can you read it?"

"A cookbook?"

He nodded earnestly.

Yuusaku expected Kusanagi to say no, or to at least read just to Ryouken, but he took the book and flipped to the first recipe page. Then he held it out for both of them to see and began to read in his deep voice. He traced his finger over the characters, following the ingredients list and then the instructions, for each of the recipes they read through. As he read, Yuusaku tried to memorise the kanji, the names of the dishes, whatever he could get his hazy mind on.

He hardly noticed he was asleep until he fell against Kusanagi's side with soft, closed eyes.


	7. SEVEN

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey there, sorry this is a day late! i am moving this week, so for my own sanity, there will be no new chapter next week, 25 Feb. Posting will resume on 04 March. thank you for understanding! <3

Yuusaku woke up with aches in his belly and pains running up and down his joints. He felt hot and sweaty, and yet he shivered deep under two blankets. His thick, warm jacket hadn't even managed to bite the chill either, and he settled further into the covers. Distantly, he heard someone moving around, but his hazy mind didn't register who was wandering around the van or what they were saying. He only began to pay attention when Kusanagi knelt down next to him and swept his bangs to the side.

"I ... do," he said, pushing at Kusanagi's knee. His arm felt too weak to push away Kusanagi's hands, but he still tried half-heartedly.

Kusanagi only smiled sadly at him.

"You don't look well at all, kiddo. Don't worry, the doctor's coming soon."

Doctor? At the mention of doctor, he shuffled against the bed sheets, forcing himself to rise despite the aching protest in his limbs. He coughed weakly into a fist, pulling the covers up with him. "No," he told Kusanagi, his voice little more than a dry rasp. "No doctor."

"He's going to help bring down your fever and make you feel better," Kusanagi said. "Not talk about the nightmares, all right? He's just coming here to get rid of that flu."

Yuusaku shook his head harder, biting his lip when his mind spun like a top. Ryouken was curled up next to him, a little hand pressed against his mouth. Not a blemish nor fever dusted his ivory cheeks, and his silver hair swept across his lean brow. Yuusaku pressed his own hand to his forehead, sticky with sweat and raging like a tempestuous fire. His head hurt most of all.

"You've got a big fever," Kusanagi told him, "so the doctor is coming soon. Are you hungry right now? Want some bun?"

The thought of food sat ill in his mind; beneath his hand, his stomach churned and he remembered being sick more than once over the night. Twisting his lips to the side, he motioned towards the sink tap. Kusanagi passed him a small glass of water that he sipped at.

At the sound of the door opening, he nearly dropped the cup in surprise. Through the little door came a young man with dark purple hair messily arranged in a mop atop his head. He carried with him a small backpack, not a briefcase, and instead of a white labcoat he wore jeans and a pullover. The doctors in the Bad Room all looked the same, and Yuusaku remembered every feature of their faces. This new doctor, whoever he was, never went to the Bad Room.

 _He's good,_ his mind tried to supply, but Yuusaku folded back into his blankets, holding the cup in front of his eyes.

Kusanagi embraced the doctor with a firm hug, patting him once on the back. In return, the doctor patted him on the back too, and they exchanged muffled words. Then the doctor stepped away and squatted down. Young. He was younger than Kusanagi if only by a couple years, but he looked ... similar to Kusanagi too.

"Hey there, I'm Jin," the doctor introduced, patting himself on the chest. "I'm Kusanagi's little brother and a doctor, and he told me you weren't feeling too hot. Can you tell me what's wrong?"

Yuusaku shook his head.

If Jin was upset by his refusal, he didn't speak up. He turned to Kusanagi and asked, "Can I ask Kusanagi instead?"

Slowly, Yuusaku nodded his head.

"Flu symptoms, I think," Kusanagi said. "Fever, vomiting, shivering, tiredness. Started last night ... might have been from the cold beach walk."

Jin only shrugged his shoulders. "Little kids pick up all sorts of bugs, so it's hard to pinpoint how exactly he got ill. But let's see how he's doing today. Yuusaku, let's take your temperature this morning." From his pocket he produced a similar thermometer.

Yuusaku leaned back further into the blankets, pulling the covers up over his nose. "I ... do."

However, unlike Kusanagi, Jin didn't pass over the instrument. He tucked it back into his pocket and produces another one, this one shaped like a magnifying glass with a point at the end. "These are my special doctor tools," he explained, "so I need to be careful using them. But this one goes in your ear, all right? I'll pop it in your ear and it'll take your temperature."

He scooched forward. Yuusaku froze, every fibre of his body telling him to run. His eyes flicked to Kusanagi who sat back and watched; Ryouken slept on at the foot of the bed, oblivious to the stranger. No one would help him then? He pulled the covers up higher, but Jin moved in with the thermometer. When it pressed against the tip of Yuusaku's ear, he flinched and shot his shoulders up to his earlobes.

"Did that tickle a bit?" Jin asked, chuckling to himself. "I'll be extra careful. Can you tip your head to the side for me?"

He moved to shake his head, but Jin slipped the instrument into his ear. Click, click, and then a beep—and before Yuusaku could pull back, Jin removed the instrument and popped off the tip.

"There we go, that's your temperature. Good job, Yuusaku."

He blinked. Done ... already?

Jin slipped the tool back into his backpack and extracted another one, this one quite similar to the first one. "Let's look in your ears next while I've got you here. Which ear should I look in first?"

He braced himself for Jin to move forward, but he remained still holding the tool.

"Which ear, Yuusaku?"

He tapped his right ear. Jin slipped the tool inside. His head tilted forward to allow Jin to peer into the instrument, and bits of his thick, purple hair tickled Yuusaku's cheek. Yet before he could even pull away, Jin switched ears, and the examination was done. He continued on with various tools, often asking him, "Where should I check first?" and "Does this spot hurt?" Yuusaku kept to himself, one hand braced over his aching stomach. The examination ended as quickly as it began though, and at last Jin settled back on the bed with the last tool tucked away in his backpack.

For the entire examination, Kusanagi stood back with one fist pressed against his mouth. He now stood in the same position, only with his eyebrows pulled down low over his tired, grey eyes. He and Jin exchanged various looks, some that Yuusaku couldn’t begin to understand, until Jin turned back to him.

"I'll come back with some medicine to help you feel better," he said, "but right now just get lots of rest and read some books. How about I bring you more cookbooks?"

"Please."

The words brought a warm smile to Jin's face. "My pleasure. Shouichi, can I have a word with you outside?"

Like the flip of a switch, panic rose in Yuusaku's stomach. He moved to rise, but Kusanagi lifted a hand to stop him. "I'm just going outside. I'll be right back."

When the door closed, Yuusaku hurried across the mattress and pressed his ear to the door. Whatever Kusanagi wanted to talk to the doctor about, he wanted to be a part of it too. At the door, he listened carefully for the barest mumble of voices. He didn't hear it at first, but when he strained his ears, he caught snippets—and the stranger sounded upset.

"Kougami's kid? Kougami's _kid?!_ That's who you found—and that other child, oh the other little kid too, Shouichi are you serio—"

"I'm serious about them, all right? They were in some bad situation, I know that, and I've looked into just what happened and I can't find any details. None. Zilch. Whatever's going on with Dr. Kougami has been kept well under wraps, but I know, I just know it's got something to do with these kids."

Dr. Kougami. Yuusaku shivered at the mere mention of the name, and in his mind a lecherous face stared back at him. The man in the white lab coat, the man who put him in the Bad Room. The Bad Man. He didn't want to hear his name, wanted to call him nothing more than the Bad Man, but Kusanagi and Jin kept talking about him and his work. Yuusaku shoved his fingers in his ears, tucking his knees into his churning belly. He felt sick all over again, and barely made it back to the basin before he coughed up what little water and juice he'd drunk.

Behind him, the door swung open to Kusanagi's panicked face.

"Yuusaku, Yuusaku here, you're all right, just let it happen and then we'll clean you up."

Over the sound of his retching, he only heard the door close again, but when he peered up with teary eyes, Jin was nowhere in sight. Gently, Kusanagi wiped his face with a soft kitchen towel and tucked the corner of the blanket over his shivering shoulders. Yuusaku sunk down into the mattress, one hand clamped over his stomach. No more talk of the Bad Man. No more talk of the Bad Room. That man and that place were far, far away from here and no one was coming for him.

"Do you want some water to wash your mouth with?" Kusanagi asked, holding out a small cup. Yuusaku took it in his hands but did not sip. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted Ryouken wrestling around in the bed, and then all at once he arose with a sharp gasp, shooting up and knocking the covers clean off his pulsing chest.

Kusanagi set a steady hand on his shoulder. "Ryouken, I’m here—"

"I'm fine," he said with a swallow so thick Yuusaku saw his throat bob up and down. "I'm fine."

Kusanagi only hummed under his breath. "I'll make some pancakes for you," he said, tapping his fingers on the counter. "Yuusaku, you just stay under the covers. I'll come read a story with you."

He nodded slowly, but as he tucked under the blanket, Ryouken shuffled over. He pressed a hand to his forehead, lips twisting and eyebrows crunching together.

"You still feel sick," Ryouken said at last, and then sighed a breath that came from his toes. "How come you got sick and I didn't?"

Yuusaku shrugged. They both played on the cold beach together and warmed up by the toasty fire, and they'd been inseparable since they escaped.

"Sometimes you just get sick," Kusanagi said. He puttered round the kitchen, whisking pancake batter in one bowl while the silver, flat stovetop heated up. "But a doctor came to see him while you were sleeping and told us that Yuusaku will be fine, so he's just going to deliver some medicine."

Yuusaku shrinked back, but to his surprise Ryouken paled to the colour of milk, his eyes growing as wide as the pancakes now sizzling on the cooker. "A d-doctor?"

"My brother, actually."

A blink. Kusanagi hadn’t told them much about himself, and what little Yuusaku had learnt from Kusanagi had come from brief conversations or watching him work. He was good at both cooking and computers, and seemed to do work for both. He was social and friendly but he never had friends over or talked about them. In all their time here, this was the first he'd heard of Kusanagi's family, much less a younger brother.

"Dr. Jin," Yuusaku said.

"Yeah, that's right, Dr. Jin. He came round and took your temperature. He'll be back with your medicine, and later on, you'll go talk to him about your nightmares."

No. He'd tell no one about those nightmares, especially not to another doctor. Who knew if Jin knew of the lab coat strangers or the Bad Man. Kusanagi was safe—he could discern that fact—but anyone else felt like a dangerous foe.

"Is he ..." Ryouken chewed on the pink flesh of his lip, tearing a hole in the skin. "Is he a doctor like my father?"

Realisation dawned on Kusanagi like an alighted lightbulb. "No, no," he said, waving his hands back and forth. "An actual doctor, a medical doctor. Someone who helps people feel better at the hospital."

To Yuusaku, the Bad Man wasn't so different from Jin. They would both wear lab coats and perform tests, and in his nightmares they'd look much like the same person and be on the team of doctors who put him in the Bad Room. He trusted Jin as little as he trusted the Bad Man, and the more Kusanagi and Ryouken talked about doctors and tests, the sicker he felt. Pain gnawed at his belly, and though he had no more to vomit, he felt like he should just so he could stop everyone from talking.

He hardly realised he was shaking until Ryouken squeezed his clammy hand. "You OK?"

"F-fine."

"He just needs a couple more days of rest," Kusanagi said, reappearing with Ryouken's stack of pancakes drizzled with butter and jam.

But for the next few days, Yuusaku only felt sicker. His physical illness went away—the one that made him throw up his food and water and that put a dense fog in his mind. He felt well enough to read stories anywhere in the hot dog truck, and on the third day, he watched Ryouken and Kusanagi collect shells down by the water. But a different sort of sickness plagued him, one that woke him up in a cold sweat each night and kept horrible thoughts in his mind. Around every corner he saw a looming shadow ready to gobble him up. Underneath every table was a monster waiting to drag him back to the Bad Room.

Throughout it all, Kusanagi told him, "We'll go see the doctor."

On the day of the appointment, Yuusaku felt like he'd swallowed an entire bucket of nails. His throat and stomach both hurt and his head felt heavy and achy. Though Kusanagi took his temperature when he woke up and said he was well, everything felt off inside him. He sat down under the glovebox next to Ryouken, knees tucked up to his chest. Kusanagi sat in the driver's seat drumming his fingers on the steering wheel.

"Why're we hiding down here?"

"Just to be safe," Kusanagi said.

"But we go outside—"

"To quiet parks," he interrupted. "We're going into the city today."

Yuusaku didn't answer. Kusanagi _had_ taken them to busy places before like the thrift store. Why this trip was any different was a mystery to him. Yet the nails in his throat itched and stung, so he kept his lips pressed together as the van revved once and then headed off down the road. From his little nook under the glovebox, he could only see a sliver of the window and the barest glimpse of the sky. No buildings, no roads, and no landmarks to help him discern just where Kusanagi was taking him.

The doctor's, he’d said. To Dr. Jin.

Terror seized his chest.

"You're still sick ..." Ryouken told him, patting his hand gently.

He was still sick _because_ he was going to see Dr. Jin.

For what felt like hours, he remained tucked on the van's floor. Kusanagi only glanced down at them a handful of times, and once asked if they wanted to listen to a particular radio station.

"No news," Ryouken said at once.

"We're not listening to the news," Kusanagi told him. "Music. What kinds of music do you want to listen to?"

When neither of them spoke up, Kusanagi picked some bopping tune. Over the sound of his wheezy breaths, Yuusaku couldn’t hear much, but he felt the slight vibrations of the bass through the van floor.

The van slowed to a half and the music stopped. The noise too. The world crashed down on his shoulders like a boulder as large as a planet. Kusanagi opened the door for him to come out. Sunlight pierced his eyes and he pushed his face into his sleeves. No. He wasn’t leaving this van, not now or ever. Kusanagi would have to pull him out of here if he wanted him to move.

"Yuusaku," Kusanagi said. "Let's go see Jin together."

Back and forth he shook his head.

"We'll walk up together."

Another shake.

"Or you can walk by yourself if you want."

No.

"Or with Ryouken if you really want. You can walk him up, right?"

_No._

He heard Kusanagi, but who spoke up next was not his new guardian, but a vaguely familiar, gentle voice from the doorway. "Hey, glad you could make it." Jin stood in the doorway, no white labcoat or strange, sterile equipment hanging round his neck or from his pockets. He looked like a civilian in slacks and a sweater, cosy and comfortable. Kusanagi's face lit up at the sight of his brother.

"There's Jin. He'll walk up with us."

As kind and caring as Jin seemed, Yuusaku only shrinked further back into the crevice under the glove box. No Jin. No strange men or places or _anything._

With slow steps, Jin approached the van and crouched down. He held out several thin, papery magazines with glossy pages. Cookbooks, he thought at first, but he breathed out his words: _"Cooking magazines."_

"That's right," Jin said with a small nod. "Heard from Kusanagi that you love to look at cookbooks, so I checked these out at the library. Figured you haven't seen these before, so this might be some new reading for you."

Vaguely, he heard the words; his eyes remained fixated on the bright pages. Thousands of delicious appetizers lined the front pages, arranged on platters and tiers and little shelves that made the bright colours pop. On one cover were fall leaves and heavenly, crisp pies and tarts on a picturesque wooden picnic table. The other page reminded him of summer with the bright beach towel, blue background, and delicate paper plates lined with finger foods and desserts.

"I'll give these to you," Jin said, holding out the books for him, "and you can carry these back up to my office. We'll walk together."

Every muscle in his body seized up. The magazines crinkled under his sweaty palms, and Yuusaku pushed the books back as if stung.

Jin didn't budge. "Everyone's coming up to the room, so we'll go together." Then he motioned for Kusanagi to follow him.

Only Ryouken remained in the van.

"What if he didn't want to go?" he said, one hand gripping Yuusaku's shirt sleeve.

"We're all going together," Kusanagi said.

"Come on," Jin added. "I put some more books in the room."

Slowly, he shifted his eyes to Ryouken. He trusted Kusanagi. He trusted Kusanagi, which should have meant he trusted Jin too. It should be safe.

Yuusaku slid one foot out of the van. Then the other. He pressed the magazines close to his chest as he wandered out of the van and towards the door leading into a bright, cheery apartment building. Large windows stretched across one of the walls, and the interior was decorated in warm browns and greens, the sort of colours that should have been dark and moody and yet lit up the entire room. A staircase and elevator sat in one corner, and in another was a small, quaint lounge.

Jin guided them into the elevator and pressed the button for the fourth floor. The elevator creaked once as it roseed, and the doors open with a soft, gentle bing. Like the entryway, the hallway was decorated in the same brown and green wallpaper. They followed one another down the hallway, single-file, to a strong wooden door.

"Number 52," Ryouken said. "This your house, sir?"

"Just Dr. Jin's fine," he said. "And yes, this is my apartment. Now ..." He crouched down once more. "You and my brother are going to sit in the lobby for a bit while Yuusaku and I talk. It'll only be for a few minutes."

"N—" Yuusaku pressed a tight fist to his lips. No, he didn't want to go with Jin, didn't want to be alone.

"We'll go for a walk together," Kusanagi said.

Ryouken shook his head. "But I thought we're going with Yuusaku."

"He's going with Dr. Jin for a bit."

Panic rose in Yuusaku's gut, but before he realised it, the door had swung open. The same earthy tones greeted him, but the hallway seemed darker and more menacing. He froze in the doorway, crinkling the magazines between his sweaty palms. This wasn’t what he wanted.

Not what he wanted at all.

In the blink of an eye, Kusanagi and Ryouken left and the door closed behind him. His throat seized up as tightly as a coiled rope. Aches blistered over his arms and his head spun. For one painful moment, he felt the breath leave his lungs. He couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. Couldn’t respond to the world around him.

He snapped to with a rough cough.

Next to him, Jin crouched in the doorway to another room.

Unlike Kusanagi whose face grew as white as snow whenever he saw Yuusaku freeze up, Jin felt sturdy and secure like a great oak tree. He didn't say anything for a moment, and Yuusaku's eyes slowly adjusted to his settings. A room. Several rooms. Toys and books and all manner of objects for him to stare at. Down the hallway he saw the kitchen, and on either side of him were two rooms.  
  
"You're welcome to explore," Jin said, "but if you want to see where I've put the books, come with me."   
  
He led him into the left room—a cosy living room with a plush sofa, clean coffee table, and large bay windows overlooking the city. Through the voiles came muted sunlight to scatter across the carpet. On the table were two small stacks of cookbooks, some magazines and others hefty manuals like Kusanagi owned. He set the books back down on one pile, and his eyes caught sight of other books. Books with brighter pictures on them and more dazzling food.   
  
Just as Jin sat down on the couch, Yuusaku froze. Heart stopped beating.   
  
"Where's ... Mr. Kusanagi?"   
  
"Just waiting outside. He'll come back in a little bit, when the big hand on the clock reaches twelve."   
  
Yuusaku frowned at the clock on the wall. Not close at all. Sighing through his teeth, he settled down on the floor by the books, hands tucked in his lap. If Kusanagi wasn’t coming right now, he'd wait for him. He wouldn’t even move a muscle, as still as a rock on the shore. As still as prey being hunted.   
  
He waited for Jin to tell him to pick up a book and start reading, but nothing of the sort happened. Throughout the hour, Jin peruses round the room. He picked up various books and puzzles, occasionally adjusting them on the wooden shelf next to the couch. He never said anything, and his actions only spoke to his quiet pleasure. If he was upset, he hid it far better than the Bad Man or Kusanagi.   
  
At the end of the hour, he led Yuusaku back down the hallway and down the stairs to the hotdog truck. Kusanagi and Ryouken were waiting in the front seats, Ryouken peering over the dashboard to see him. He waved, and Yuusaku raised a timid hand.   
  
As he hopped into the van and settled under the dashboard with Ryouken, Jin headed round the vehicle to Kusanagi's door window.   
  
"Can you come by next week?"   
  
"Sure," Kusanagi said. "Talk to you later?"   
  
"Talk to you tonight."   
  
Worry trembled in his belly. Talk? Had Kusanagi and Jin been talking? Ryouken always asked every day if Kusanagi had called his father, to which the answer was always no. But what if Kusanagi had been talking to someone else? Someone who might have known more about them. He'd have time when they were asleep, even though he felt like he stayed awake all night and never rested more than a few moments. But if Kusanagi was talking to someone, that was danger. Big danger.   
  
As the truck pulled away, Ryouken leaned close to him and pressed his hand over his forehead. "Did the doctor make you better?"   
  
"It's not a sickness," Kusanagi told him, eyes still on the road. "He's just having nightmares, and Dr. Jin can help him with that. He's a healthy boy though, don't worry."   
  
Ryouken bounced his head up and down. "He can't really make nightmares go away though, right? So what'd you do?"   
  
" ... read books," Yuusaku said. A lie. Aches blossomed in his belly, but Kusanagi and Ryouken both hummed in agreement.   
  
"Like those cookbooks?" Ryouken pressed. "Like at the library?"   
  
"Not that many," he said, and to his surprise, a laugh bubbles up in his throat. It came out as little more than a puff of air, but he felt his lips begin to tug and the worry ease from his weary heart. "Just ... just books. Cookbooks."   
  
"Like at home." Tucking his chin atop his knees, Ryouken smiled down at him. "I hope Dr. Jin makes you better."   
  
He couldn’t, he wanted to say. No one could magically make someone better, lest of all the nightmares and fears plaguing his mind. But Ryouken's face only exuded warmth and positivity, nestled in the crook of his knees, and so Yuusaku nestled himself close and laid his head on Ryouken's shoulder. Soft. Like the blanket, like home, like wrapped up in cloths and tucked next to a cosy fire.   
  
He couldn’t trust Dr. Jin like he trusted Ryouken, or even how he barely trusted Kusanagi, but ...   
  
But he wanted to get better—for Ryouken's sake.


	8. EIGHT

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and we are back! i'm happily moved into my new home and life is slowly going back to normal—and with that comes normal posting updates! again, sorry about the delay, but i hope this chapter makes up for the wait. You'll also notice that the tense has changed from present to past; while i typically write in present tense, i was getting a bit frustrated with it and how it made my writing look, so for the past couple days i've been meticulously going through all of this fic changing each individual verb. let me tell you, it was a pain ^^;; but well worth it, and i hope you enjoy and look forward to more chapters! happy reading!

Tucked under the glove box, Ryouken kept his knees pulled up to his chest as he and Yuusaku bumped along on the floor of the truck. This was Yuusaku's third visit to Dr. Jin, and he looked no less frightened by the visit. By his watery smile, he looked to be trying to feel better, but Ryouken saw worry etched over his fragile features. He looked like a new bird having fallen from the nest too early.

Kusanagi parked the truck right out front of the apartment, and Jin stepped out of the building to greet them.

"Good to see you," Jin said, waving to them on the ground. He opened the door for them and extended a hand to Yuusaku. "We'll see you in an hour."

Wordless, Yuusaku slipped from the floor and followed Jin into the building. Ryouken watched him go from the passenger seat, peering over the dashboard until Yuusaku disappeared through the glass doors and into the apartment. Only then did he settle down on the seat and kick his feet back and forth.

"Books?" Kusanagi said, offering several paperbacks with minimal print and large letters. Some of the paperbacks weren’t even books but junk magazines they'd received in the mail, and he'd only ready them because Yuusaku read every piece of paper within sight. Ryouken, however, would have much preferred to be outside.

Only he'd asked Kusanagi this very question and received the immovable "no." No, they couldn’t wander around a neighbourhood where they could be seen. No, they couldn’t go to the beach across the street.

Ryouken slumped down in the seat, stretching his toes so that they swept the floor. Yuusaku talked with Dr. Jin for one full hour, and no matter how long that must have seemed to him, it seemed like  _ ages  _ longer for Ryouken—and the more time he had on his hand,s the more his mind seemed to attack him with painful, gut-wrenching thoughts. His father. Mainly his father and how he, the once-perfect son, had left him. Guilt chewed on him like a merciless beast, digging its teeth in deeper until he wriggled in his seat.

No.

No, he couldn’t go home.

No, he couldn’t do anything. He had gotten Yuusaku out of the mess they were both in, and they were safe now. Neither Father nor anyone else could hurt them so long as they stayed here. But then Yuusaku didn't like it here. He hated it. He cried every night and morning, and sometimes during his sleep he writhed from side to side, nightmares plaguing his mind. He didn't speak up or say much, and most of the time he sat on the bed or seat and flipped through the same books. At least here he had new books to look at.

And him? He sat and thought. He thought for hours until his mind hurt. Unlike Yuusaku, he didn't cry. He  _ couldn’t  _ cry. His worries bottled up in him, and though he felt cracks on his chest, he never broke down. Not since the night out in the frost. Not since then.

Next to him, Kusanagi flipped through several books.

"Is Yuusaku going to be all right in there?"

"He's fine," Kusanagi answered, not looking up from his book. "He's just talking with Dr. Jin."

"But he cries ..."

"He's scared about what he  _ has  _ to talk about. You know, sometimes like how you cry when you tell me stuff too."

He shoved his hands under his armpits, making himself no smaller than a basketball. "I don't cry that much," Ryouken said. And he didn't. It had been a while since he'd cried.

"But it's all right to cry," Kusanagi continued, "because Yuusaku is telling Dr. Jin about the scary things that happened—"

"No he isn't."

Kusanagi blinked.

"No he isn't," Ryouken said, and this time his voice didn't wobble and waver. "He wouldn't tell anyone about what happened, not even me ..." Not even the tiniest detail. Whenever Yuusaku remembered his time down in the basement, he cried. Ryouken had since stopped asking him to recall any details. Why this man then would want to make Yuusaku remember such painful memories sat ill in his belly. Why make Yuusaku cry? Why hurt him when he'd already been hurt enough?

A thick shiver ran up and down his frozen spine. No matter how tightly he held himself, his visible tremors disrupted the seat belt lying across his chest and his jacket cinched around his shoulders. "He wouldn't tell anyone," Ryouken said. "Not even me."

"He's pretty scared right now—"

"They did something bad to him."

Kusanagi's eyes widened to the size of dinner plates. "Do you know what happened?"

Gone was his softness. "N-no."

"Ryouken—"

"Yuusaku won't tell me either!" He wouldn't tell a soul. But he heard the many questions underlying Kusanagi's words—questions about his father, about where they had run away from. He knew some of these questions. He knew the answers too. Maybe. He saw ... something. The Lost Incident, the many pages of scientific notes his father wrote. The men he hired to work with them. All those doctors in labcoats, all those meetings. And Yuusaku ... the little boy he befriended who was taken away.

"If something happened ..."

"Nothing happened." Nothing. Nothing he wanted to share or recall. His stomach twisted in angry knots beneath his hands, and with each swallow he felt thick sludge creeping down his esophagus.

Slowly, the tension eased from the corners of Kusanagi's eyes and lips. He leant back in his seat, but instead of returning to the abandoned book on his lap, he began to flip through a small device on his wrist—a little computer, it looked like, with a holographic screen that lit up. Ryouken had seen the same device on his father's wrist before, but he knew better than to assume it was some top-secret device his father created. This was just a simple electronic wristwatch. Still, he watched Kusanagi input information into a folder.

"What're you writing?"

"Work notes."

"For the hotdog truck?"

"For something else."

He leant closer in his seat. Kusanagi didn't budge, and on the little holographic screen Ryouken saw lines upon lines of gibberish. Not Japanese, not even English letters—but numbers strung together with the occasional English letter spaced between. He'd never read words like that in life.

"Coding," Kusanagi explained, flicking closed the window with a single swish of his finger. "I work with computers too."

At his old house, he had a computer, one that sat in his father's office, stocky and sturdy and sitting on a hardwood table at the back of the room. Around it were filing cabints locked up with the keys in Father's pockets, the place where Father stored his private work. But the computer was for playing games. On cold, rainy days, he played games in the office until Father returned home from work. But those games had no strings of coding, not even mashes of letters and numbers.

"Do you have games?" Ryouken asked.

"Not here, but on the big computer, yes. Actually ..." He scratched at the purple fuzz along his chin and then motioned for Ryouken to get up. "Come here for a second, I think there's something we might be able to do while we wait for Yuusaku."

All too gratefully, Ryouken hopped down from his seat. He followed Kusanagi into the back of the truck, to where all the pots, pans, and books were kept. Nothing seemed properly organised, but Kusanagi perused through several cupboards, pulling out various bits and pieces. He handed them back to Ryouken. First, several sheets of metal. Then odd bits of metal and cables. Each object weighed down his thin arms like another solid boulder.

"What're you getting?" Ryouken asked. He curled to the side to peer round Kusanagi, but all he got was another heavy piece of metal.

"Parts."

"For what?"

Spinning round, Kusanagi brandished a screwdriver like a prized sword. "A robot. Let's build a robot."

Were he four, five,  _ or  _ six, building a robot would have sounded like the experience of a lifetime. No doubt if Kusanagi told Yuusaku they could build something his eyes would light up like a child's on Christmas Day. But Ryouken knew better than to think building a robot was a task that would take them little more than an hour. He peered over the top of the pile. "Now?"

"We can get a head start on it and then work on it this afternoon. Come on, bring the parts over here."

Carefully, Kusanagi slipped past him. Ryouken followed him to the largest area of the truck. By no means was it large though, no wider than Kusanagi's arms spread out on either side of him. When he set down the metal sheets, they clinked, clattered, and took up every inch of the floor around them. Without any room to sit or kneel, he scampered up onto the desk and hung his legs over the side. Kusanagi crouched at the edge of the pile, thumbing through the parts.

"A robot ... out of this?"

"Sure."

He doubted it. Robots were made of specific parts welded together, not a mash of metal and wires. But Kusanagi began sorting the parts into more piles: sheets of metal in one area; nuts, bolts, and other clasping and clamping devices in another; a section of hardware with fiddly computer motherboards and tiny coloured wires. Once, Ryouken opened up the back of Father's computer tower to see what was inside a computer—what made it tick—and these pieces looked no different.

Kusanagi set down a heavy, metal box between them. Inside were the tools. He tossed a wrench from hand to hand, then buckled down into the work. Ryouken tucked his knees up to his chest and watched Kusanagi screw together various pieces of metal.

"Do you know what parts go together?"

"Not a clue."

"So then you're just ..." He tossed the word around on the tip of his tongue. "Winging it?"

"Essentially. But I used to build these sorts of things as a kid—a bigger kid than you, of course, but when I was younger and not working in this hotdog van."

A bubbly feelings grew in his chest and he found himself leaning forward over his knees. Kusanagi didn't talk much about himself, and Ryouken found himself catching onto the barest detail of his saviour.

"So you built robots when you were a big kid?"

"Built electronics, more specifically, but I used to have my fair share of androids."

"Can I see?"

Kusanagi snorted round the screwdriver between his teeth. "Can't. They're long gone in the trash."

"Oh," Ryouken said, slumping down towards the floor. Through the thick, tangled mess of his white bangs, he spotted the beginnings of the robot's frame. The metal warped around into cylinder with space on the sides for arms and a place underneath for the wheels and hardware. With the paint chipped away, the robot looked practically dug from the dump, but Kusanagi patted it like a revered pet.

"Bet we'll have her finished by the end of the week," he said, clapping his hands together.

"Her?"

"Or him. Or them. Maybe you and Yuusaku can pick out this robot's new name—they'll need one once I program the AI."

AI.

Blood froze in his veins. Tight. Painful. Weak gasps caught in his cracked lips, and he tumbled back into the hallway. The Lost Incident, and likewise Father, was looking for AI. The manual Ryouken found  _ talked  _ about AI, never defining it. But if Kusanagi wanted to make "AI" for this new robot, that could only mean Kusanagi wants to  _ contact  _ Father.

Scrambling back down the hall, he put as much distance between himself and Kusanagi. Only Kusanagi, as quick as a fox, shot forward too.

"Ryouken—"

"Don't put it in there!"

"In whe—"

"The AI, don't put the AI—don't put it in the robot!"

Kusanagi only blinked at him with wide eyes. He stopped moving, settling back against the counter, but Ryouken still scooched as far back as he could, until his back hits Kusanagi's bed. One shaky finger pointed to the mess of metal and screws that he kicked across the floor in his panic.

"Please, don't."

Kusanagi's empty hands settled in his lap, neatly folded together like a pressed napkin. "I'm not touching anything, Ryouken," he said. "Nothing in my hands, nothing that I'm doing. So just take a deep breath kiddo and we'll work through this. Just take a deep—"

The front door swung open on well-oiled hinges and Yuusaku peeked his head through. As usual, he looked wide-eyed and frightened and clambered right under the glovebox without a word. Jin poked his head in after him, looking much more calm and secure. A small crease formed over his eyebrows when he spotted the mess on the floor. His eyes found Ryouken too, pushed back as far as he could be down the hallway.

Kusanagi swung himself up onto his feet and brushed himself off. "Hey kiddo, you and Jin talk today?"

"We read some stories, didn't we?" Jin said with a small nod, smiling to Kusanagi all the while. "I'll see him next week though, and I've asked him to keep thinking about what book he might like to bring from your collection. I've heard you have quite the supply of baking books."

"Quite," Kusanagi said, still nodding his head. Not once did he peek over his shoulder.

Ryouken kept himself pressed against the wall. With neither Jin nor Kusanagi focusing on him, he should have been able to slip by and hide under the glovebox with Yuusaku, but worry kept him tucked in his safe spot. Something was wrong. Both adults were acting far too casual and normal, and not even seconds ago Kusanagi looked as pale as a ghost. And Ryouken  _ knew  _ that what he said to Kusanagi startled him. But still Kusanagi kept on chatting about his plans and hotdog business and Jin talked about tough school paperwork.

"Well," Kusanagi said then, "we should be getting back before dinner, and I'm sure you've got papers to write."

"And grade," Jin said with a wry smile. The shadows further enunciated the bags under his eyes. "Been helping the professor out, and well ... it's a task, I'll tell you."

"Tell me about it later." Kusanagi gave his brother a firm clap on the shoulder, then a hug, and finally they broke away. Jin slipped down the stairs, and through the front window Ryouken watched him head back into the building. Carefully, Ryouken crept to the front seat and under the glovebox with Yuusaku. He kept his teeth firmly set in his lip as the car roared underneath him. He expected the trip home to be as silent as a night in the fields.

"So Yuusaku, what sorts of books did you read?" Kusanagi asked.

"Cookbooks."

"Recipes we might be able to make here? Maybe we should ask Jin to lend us some recipes—we should start making actual dinners instead of snacks and treats."

Yuusaku bobbed his head up and down.

"If you look in the back," Kusanagi continued, "Ryouken and I were just about to start making a robot. Care to help us when we're home? I'm sure there's a task for each of us."

Again, Yuusaku nodded his little head. He kept quiet for the ride. Ryouken slid his hand between Yuusaku's clenched fist, and they held hands for the trip home. As usual, Yuusaku was as shaky as a newborn, as pale as milk. Unshed tears flecked the corners of his eyes, and he kept his watery gaze on the floor until Kusanagi stopped the van.

When Ryouken heard the breaks, he popped his head up. Back at the same market square as before. A handful of people milled about the place, but no one stopped to knock on their door and ask if they were in business, and no one even looks interested. They moved like robots on a predetermined path, sidestepping each other without glancing up from their books and mobiles. Among the pedestrians was a little boy his age, or maybe a year or two older. His blazer stood out from the crowd: black trimmed with red, and buttoned up his chest. His shiny shoes caught the evening sunset and sparkled a patch of cement always just a couple centimetres ahead of him.

_ Where's he going?  _ he wondered. Where was this schoolboy heading? Home? Or back to school for club?

His cartoon-printed backpack hung off his shoulders, straps dragging across the ground. Tied round the straps were various printed characters; even from a distance were familiar television and anime characters, and a couple straps that look like tourist gifts.

A regular old schoolboy.

He never went to school when he was five years old. He had asked Father a few months after his birthday when he spotted children walking home one day, but Father told him his school was at home in the textbooks and workbooks he had him read and complete, so he never bothered asking again. Now, Ryouken watched the boy cross the street and imagined  _ himself  _ as the boy. Him, wearing the same black and red uniform and carrying a heavy backpack of books and worksheets. He pictured Yuusaku walking next to him and swinging his arms back and forth, wearing the little yellow hat and shirt all kindergartners wear.

Over his shoulder he heard the scritch-scratch of movement—Kusanagi and Yuusaku pushing apart the pieces of the robot that scattered during the drive. Once more, they piled up the various components into neat sections. Yuusaku seemed to know just where everything went even without Kusanagi's instructions. He fiddled with several wires in his hand, and once untangled, presented them to Kusanagi.

"Computer," Yuusaku said. "For the robot."

"The motherboard," Kusanagi said, taking the wires. "We'll hook these cords up inside the robot and then it'll listen to us ... or well, something like that. We'll see where this project takes us. Ryouken, you coming?"

He blinks at Kusanagi. "Y-yeah."

"Or do you see something out there?

_ The schoolboy,  _ he wanted to say. The free-spirited student walking down the street in his royal uniform, carrying a backpack so bright he could be spotted in the thickest of crowds.

Ryouken slid down the seat, but moved no closer.

"If you don't want to build the robot, that's all right too. I'm not forcing you."

"I know ..."

The spare parts dropped to the floor with a slight clink-clank. "What's up?" Kusanagi asked, attention now undivided. He tucked a hand under his chin, tickling his own purple hairs.

"Will we ever ..." He chose his words carefully; Yuusaku was watching him the way a prey watched its predator, alert for any sign of danger or worry. "Will we ever be all right?"

"Everything is fine right now," Kusanagi told him. "There's nothing you or Yuusaku need to worry about."

"But." Teeth chewed on the soft flesh of his lip. "But will we ever ..."

Realisation dawned on Kusanagi's face, and his eyes briefly flicked to Yuusaku. They both knew: this was a conversation Yuusaku's young ears shouldn't hear. This was a matter that shouldn't concern him.

"Because ..." Ryouken tugged on the bottom of his shirt, gaze sinking to the floor. "I want to go to ... to ... school." The last word he whispered, a breath of air between chapped lips.

"What about some workbooks?" Kusanagi said instead.

A blink. A smile. Bubbling up from his chest came a warm feeling, and his fingers tightened round the soft cloth of his shirt. But then he heard the words clearly—not school, no uniforrm or walks to classes; no classmates or teacher. Kusanagi wasn't offering him the experience of going back to school, the experience he'd never had in his life. He was just trying to placate him to stay in the van.

"And for you too, Yuusaku," he said, "but we'll check in with Jin just what sorts of books you need. You'd be starting kindergarten, I ... think. And what about you, Ryouken? What school year?"

Father never told him what school years he'd completed; he just read the books he was given and completed the exercises in his workbooks.

"Well no matter," Kusanagi said, moving right along. "We'll get some books from the library or bookstore tomorrow. In the meantime, we'll have a supplementary lesson: building a robot. That the sort of work you did in school, Ryouken?"

"Yeah," he lied, "and sometimes we did science experiments in the sink too. The whole class would watch the teacher." He slipped down from his seat and settled on the floor next to Yuusaku. Bits and bolts, metal and plastic. Whatever Kusanagi and Yuusaku planned on creating must have been rather large. He never had a robot in his house, not even any of the fancy technology he'd seen around the hotdog van. He didn't dare touch a single part else he be electrocuted or his fingers chopped off.

"Sounds like a pretty fun school. You miss your classmates?"

"A bit."

Yuusaku smiled down at his hands. "Sounds like fun."

Kusanagi laughed joyfully, leaning back against the computers, chest bouncing with muffled laughter. "Well, I doubt I can be a teacher—I've been told before I'm not the most cooperative of teammates. But the three of us will work together, all right? We'll build this robot together."

"Sounds like fun," Yuusaku said again.

Ryouken slipped his fingers together. Together. Like a class, like a family. But still, as he helped Kusanagi and Yuusaku sort the bits and bobs for the robot, his chest twinged each time he imagined another day in the van. Another day here, not out there. Another day of reading books and sitting on chairs without ever going outside, to class, to the shops.

Father wouldn’t find him again. He knew that. But, deep down, he hoped  _ someone  _ would find him, if only to take him outside for one day.


	9. NINE

Every day he and Kusanagi built the robot. He waited all day on the front seats of the van for Kusanagi to finish up with his work. Watching Kusanagi work had never been so exciting—not the work part, though it was fun to see him chop ingredients, but the moment he put down his tools, untied his apron, and hung it on the hook. As soon as he finished his shift, Yuusaku leapt off the seat and scurried to the desk. He flipped it over with Kusanagi's help and pulled out a large cardboard box filled with their parts and wires. The robot itself—at least what they had built of it so far—hid in a cupboard, and carefully he took the robot to the floor.

"Let me get some coffee first," Kusanagi said, running his fingers through his sweaty hair. "I just finished work."

"I can do," Yuusaku said. He took up his trusty screwdriver and hammer, one in each hand, and started to work. Screw. Fasten. Twist. Clamp. He'd always been fascinated by machinery, especially electronics; even though he couldn’t remember the last time he ever built anything, somewhere deep in his mind was a longing to create. Gentle hands manipulated the screwdriver, tightening screws into little sockets Kusanagi had drilled into the pliable metal. They'd already compiled the round body. Underneath would go the wheels, and on either side the movable arms. He lifted up the base and peered through. Hollow, with space for a complex circuitboard or even a computer.

"Look." Yuusaku held the body up for Ryouken, tucked in the driver's seat, to see. He had his pencil tip shoved in the corner of his mouth and one of his school workbooks pressed close to his face. He peered overtop the pages with narrowed eyes.

"Hm?"

"The robot's almost done."

"Bit more work," Kusanagi added, taking a long sip from his coffee cup. "It doesn't even have arms yet—should build those today if we get the chance."

He set the metal down on the floor and began scouring across their loose parts for anything long and cylindrical. He came up with a variety of pipes and tubing, and a couple rolling ball joints, but nothing strong and sturdy. Kusanagi searched through the parts too, kneeling down next to him.

"Nothing, huh?"

"These maybe?" If they attached the arms to the body with rolling ball joints, the robot might have slightly more movement. Not as much as a human, but enough to stretch out and twirl its arms.

Kusanagi scrubbed at his eyes. "Won't fit. That's fine, the arms will just reach forwards. Our robot friend doesn't need to be perfect."

Yuusaku shook his head. He plucked two horn-like pieces from the pile and held them in either hand. Then, with a faint smile, he stuck them on top of his head. "Kusanagi ... look."

Caught up in attaching the arms to the body, Kusanagi didn’t look up for a moment. But when he did, he nearly topples over in surprise, coffee sloshing out across the ground. Yuusaku jumped and dropped the horns, but he paused. Kusanagi was ... smiling. Smiling so brightly that he glowed in the golden sunlight, and his smile dazzled the entire hotdog van.

"And just what are you doing?"

"Playing."

"I can see that. But those horns aren't for you—where are they going on the robot?"

On the robot? In his mind, he’d always pictured a gentle robot with rounded corners and a warm body. While blunt at the tips, the horns still reminded him of a beast or fearsome creature.

"How 'bout on the head?" Ryouken said. "Like a demon."

Yuusaku shook his head back and forth. No, his robot would be a gentle robot.

"It doesn't have to be there. Let's see, it could also be—on the hands like fingers."

A stone grew in his throat. "Claws?"

"Shit. No. All right, what about a tail? We don't even have to use both of them." Mumbling to himself, Kusanagi affixed one horn on the bottom of the body. Paused. Then pulled them both off and dropped them on the table. "For later. Right now, we need to work on these hands."

With a decisive nod, Yuusaku sunk down into his work. They built the robot's arms out of thick metal, heavier around the base with thinner arms. Without joints, the robot would only be able to move its fingers, but it could still function. They put together the wheels too from part they found on one of their beach trips when Ryouken spotted an abandoned tricycle caught in the rocks. The wheels tucked under the body, so that when the robot moved, it would look like it was floating over the floor.

As the night progressed, so did the frequency of Kusanagi's coffees. He got up time and time again to percolate another cup, and as heavy as Yuusaku's eyes felt, a foreign power within him told him to press on.

They built the head next using a large, round piece of metal. Kusanagi cut away an opening for the eyes. He pulled out two bulb-looking lights, but Yuusaku shook his head.

"A screen."

"Like the computer?"

Another shake of his head. Not like the computer, not like the machines in the Other Bad Room, not like the technology he was hooked up to and the helmet that was put on his head. "Like this," he said and held up a thin sheet. When they connected it to the main system of the robot, they could program the robot to make any face it liked: happy, sad, even angry. But he hoped their new robot would always wear a happy face.

"Like this," Kusanagi echoed. He fastened the screen to the inside of the robot, then adjusted the head so it connected to the body-frame. The more they worked, the closer their creation resembled an actual robot. It still looked rusty and beat-up with the various colours of metal and all the screws bulging out of the device, but Yuusaku pictured a sleek, blue robot companion. A friend.

Over the top of the robot, he spotted Ryouken watching them over his books. A friend too. Ryouken seemed even more untrusting of technology than Yuusaku, and he knew well the fear of computers. But maybe if the robot was friendly, Ryouken would like it too.

He tossed the horn-shaped pieces from hand to hand. Not horns, not tails, not claws.

"Cheeks," he told Kusanagi, passing him the pieces. "These go on the cheeks."

"Cheeks? These are horns. Pointy."

"Cheeks ... please."

"Fine. I'll attach them there—but we should make them coloured so they don't look like you-know-what."

They still didn’t look like horns to him even when Kusanagi affixed them to either side of the robot's head. They looked cute, and he patted them with the palms of his hands while Kusanagi loaded up the software for the robot. They'd saved the harddrive all this time, and no doubt they would have finished this project weeks later if not for all the late nights. Excitement buzzed down his veins as Kusanagi hooked up the wires inside the robot's base and re-affixed the head. Then he crouched down in front of it.

"Ready?"

"Ready."

He flicked a switch on the computer and the robot's screen blinked.

Yuusaku sucked in a breath. The face panel glowed brightly against his face; he yanked his collar over his head, but through the fabric he saw the light coming at him, brighter than before. Air caught in his dry lungs.

"Yuusaku," Kusanagi said. "It's all right. Look, the robot's turning on."

Slowly, he brought his collar back down. The face panel was dimmer now, and Kusanagi reached across the desk to adjust various settings on his computer. He must have been able to control the robot, Yuusaku supposed. The light felt softer, and when the robot tipped forwards and backwards, Kusanagi adjusted more settings.

"Just getting the hardware loaded, and then—bingo—"

"Greetings, master."

Yuusaku practically jumped out of his skin. The robot—it talked! It talked to them, it did—

"Whoops, wrong title. Let's see here ..."

The robot's digital eyes blinked once, and then once more: "Greetings, friends."

"Better?" Kusanagi asked him.

Yuusaku only stared with newfound awe. Standing upright, the robot was less than a head shorter than him. Its little mittened hands and blunt cheek-horns stuck out the furthest, but it remained compact even in the cramped hotdog truck. Without the paint, it looked rattier too, but he imagined the blue paint on the robot, the detailing they could do to make this robot their very own.

"Hello, Yuusaku."

He jumped again, ready to bolt across the room, when Kusanagi spoke up.

"It's an option, Yuusaku. It's learning your name. Here, tell it who you are."

Who he ... was?

He patted his chest once, and in a small, choked voice, said, "Yuusaku."

"Hello, Yuusaku," the robot said back. Blink. It turned its head to Kusanagi and blinked once more. "Hello, Kusanagi." Then it tipped itself forward, just far enough to peer down the corridor to the front of the van. "Hello ... Ryouken."

Ryouken snapped his book closed, eyes wide. "Why—why does it know my name?"

"It's learning everyone's names," Kusanagi said.

"Well I don't want it learning my name."

Gently, Yuusaku pressed his hand to the robot's stomach. Warmth seeped into his palm, pulsing the deeper he pressed. Whatever machine or hardware Kusanagi had put in there must have been keeping the robot going. All the while, the robot stared ahead at Ryouken, still tucked in the front seat.

Then it tipped its head down. "Hello, Yuusaku."

"Hullo." He glanced to Kusanagi. "That all it says?"

"You haven't asked it a question yet."

"What's ... your name?"

The little face plate blinked and glowed with new lights, and the engines hummed beneath his hand. Then the robot spoke up: "Please input a name into this box." On the face plate appeared a small, rectangular box, and a holographic keyboard sprouted out of thin air.

"Please input a name into this box."

"What should we name it?" Kusanagi asked. He crouched down, hovering a hand over the little keyboard. "Any name you'd like, Yuusaku."

He couldn’t remember the names of any of his friends, if had any back before the Bad Room. He couldn’t remember the names of his pets either, and the only names that came to surface were that of Ryouken and Kusanagi. The cookbooks had authors, and he supposed he could borrow one of their names. But when he looked at the robot, none of those names ... stuck. They all meant something different, and the robot looked like none of those people. It just looked like a robot.

"Is it a boy or a girl?"

"Don't really know," Kusanagi said with a shrug. "But we get to decide it all for this fella, so what do you think?"

Robot ... robo ...

"Roboppy. Her name's Roboppy."

Kusanagi typed it out onto the little keyboard. Roboppy's screen flashed once, and then in her bright, beepy voice said, "My name is ... Roboppy. Nice to meet you."

He felt like he could hug her and twirl her on the spot. Standing just a bit shorter than him, he could pat her head or wrap his arms round her. As warm as she felt against his palm, no doubt a hug from her would be like cuddling a thick woollen blanket. But he kept his arms down and shuffled his feet as Kusanagi began inputting more features into her, tapping away on his computer. The clickety-clack of the keys caused him to tense, and so he held onto Roboppy's mitten-like hand.

Roboppy turned her head towards him. "You are holding my ... hand?"

"How about you show Roboppy one of your books?" Kusanagi suggested. "She likes to learn."

 _Can she read?_ he wanted to ask, but he supposed that if she could hear him, she must also be able to understand what he was saying. He brought over one of his favourite dessert books, the one that he often read with Ryouken since was one of the few books he would sit through more than once. The thick, heavy pages weighed down his arms. He hefted the cookbook up one one shoulder and flipped to the first page.

"Cupcakes," he said. "Chocolate mousse cupcakes."

Roboppy's screen flickered. "Chocolate mousse cupcakes. Downloading information." With just a slight whir as a warning, a beam shot out from her face plate, landing directly on the pages. He dropped the book with a heavy thud, backing away—but Roboppy only stood still and tilted her head down to the page. The little beam traveled from the top to the bottom of the page, and then with a "Download complete," she stood back up.

"She's reading the recipe," Kusanagi said. "Try showing her another page."

And let that happen again? Yuusaku sunk back towards the floor. "What'd she do?" he asked, not raising a single finger towards the book else Roboppy's laser reappear.

"Reading. Here, I'll show her another recipe." He scooped up the book and flips to a bright page of pastel-coloured macarons. Roboppy's little face screen flickered on again, and the thin beam caught on the page. It traveled down to the bottom of the page, until at last it disappeared with her echoey, "Download complete."

"See?" Kusanagi said, holding the book out to him. "She wants to learn."

But the laser ...

He shook his head and took the book. Just like Kusanagi, he held it up for her to see. Roboppy blinked at him.

"Read?"

"Download complete."

He shook the book again. "... read?"

"She's already read that page," Kusanagi said. "Show her something new."

He flipped to another page. Without even reading the recipe aloud for Roboppy, she scanned the page and stored all the contents ... somewhere. He didn’t see the information travel into the computer, so he supposed she must store it in her body, like his brain stored information. She didn’t move a muscle or flip the pages, but each time he showed her a new recipe, she downloaded it without a second to spare.

At the desk, Kusanagi returned to his work, tapping away at the keyboard and bringing up dozens of files and documents. Most of them looked like gibberish, but he recognised drawings of machine parts, and a detailed diagram of a robot shaped just like Roboppy. The similarities were uncanny too. He glanced at Roboppy, head still tilted to the book in his arms.

"You?" he asked, pointing to the diagram.

Roboppy blinked at him. "Do not comprehend."

"Is that ... you?"

Kusanagi kicked back from the desk, twirling round to face him. "Don't worry, Yuusaku—these're just some notes I took while we built Roboppy in case we ever need to repair or duplicate her."

"You're not making more, are you?" Ryouken spoke up from the front seats, book discarded on his lap.

"No, no, she's special, she's the only one. But ..." Kusanagi scrubbed the bottom of his chin. "She looks a little rough right now."

Underneath Yuusaku's palm, Roboppy felt bumpy. She looked like she rose from the dump, and while she smelt pleasant and her screen was clean, the rusty, scratched metal made her look more daunting than she truly was. "We could paint her," he said, picking at a hanging piece of rust. "Paint her ... blue."

"Blue." Kusanagi rolled the word around on his tongue, then came close and crouched. "Blue all over, or maybe some splashes of white here, a dab of pink ... Yuusaku, you know what!"

He shot up into the air. What—what did Kusanagi want—

"Let's paint her tomorrow. We'll get paint cans and bottles, though I think I still have some saved in the back from the last paint touch-up I did on the truck, and we'll clean her right up. By the time we're through with her, Roboppy will look brand new."

Roboppy buzzed and clicked with small, trilly sounds. Happy noises, he guessed. Yuusaku himself felt warmth in his chest, and he smiled at Roboppy. She couldn’t be a bad robot, not with a bright face like that and mittened hands. His fingers itched to reach out and hold her hand. What would those mitten-like appendages feel like? Smooth, or bumpy like her body?

He let his hand hang at his side. Someday.

The next day, Kusanagi bought spray paint cans, heavy buckets of paint, and stacks of paintbrushes. He set Roboppy down outside on sheets of newspaper, and together he and Yuusaku painted Roboppy. Most of the paint was blue to cover her body and arms, but bits of pink snuck onto her hands and feet, and he painted her cheek-horns candy-corn-coloured. Roboppy stayed turned on for the entire makeover, and as he brushed the paint over her frame, she trilled, "Will this make me look clean?"

"Prettier," Yuusaku said, guiding the paintbrush around the curve of her arm. He dipped it in the bucket and slathers the thick paint like he was covering up the cracks in a broken toy. "Does this ... tickle?"

Roboppy's head tilted to the side. "Tickle?"

"Like make you laugh."

"The sensation," Kusanagi added, dabbing yellow paint on the nearest horn. "Do you feel anything as we're painting?"

"I feel happy that you're painting me."

"Can you laugh?" Yuusaku asked instead. If Roboppy couldn’t feel anything tickling her, maybe she could at least laugh along.

"Ha. Ha. Ha."

"Like a real laugh."

"Ha-ha-ha."

None of the sounds she made sounded like laughter, but then again, it had been so long since he'd laughed. Ryouken laughed every so often—he was ticklish, and when leaves got stuck in his hair, he giggled with his head craned back—and Kusanagi laughed the most of all of them, but Roboppy ... she couldn’t laugh like him. If he tried to bubble up a laugh, he'd sound like Roboppy too: creaky and old, voice weathered from unuse.

He dabbed the last of the paint on the tip of her brow, and then paintbrushes set back in dripping cans, he stood back to admire his handiwork. Roboppy shimmered blue and white, with dashes of yellow and pink highlighting her face, horns, and mitten-like hands. The lights on her face panel glowed as she crinkled her eyes together in little half-moons.

"Thank you!"

"You like?" he asked. Surely Roboppy would be upset about having to sit for a long time and watch them splatter paint everywhere.

"I like!"

"That paint won't chip or dirty, so she's free to go wherever she'd like."

At those words, Ryouken peeked over the front seat where he'd been sitting reading. "She's allowed to go out?"

"Well no, but if we leave the house, I bet she could come along."

Ryouken stuck out his lips and slid back down into the seat, but Yuusaku watched on as Roboppy glided back and forth on the pavement. They'd gone for walks before, just the three of them, but what would it be like to have Roboppy? She wasn’t a bad adult, not even an adult. If she were around, he could hold her hand, wander around the edge of the park, maybe step on the sandy floor and dig in the dirt around the playground.

"In fact ..." Kusanagi drummed his hands on the counter. "She could come with you to Dr. Jin's today."

Heart stopped. Blood rushed in his ears. Gone were the happy thoughts of him and Roboppy wandering down leaf-covered trails and playing in the sand together, replaced by the dread of returning to Dr. Jin. He didn’t hate it there; he couldn’t. But Roboppy couldn’t come and see Jin.

"Who is Dr. Jin?" Roboppy asked.

"Yuusaku's doctor."

Not his doctor. Not someone he wanted to see. Someone who had too many cookbooks in his house and who seemed to know Kusanagi. Someone who he trusted even less than Kusanagi, and yet who he was _supposed_ to trust. Somehow. He felt cold all the way from his head to his toes, and all the while Kusanagi and Roboppy trilled on about heading off to see Jin this afternoon. He’d forgotten all about the appointment, too interested in building and painting Roboppy.

Over the top of the seat, Ryouken stared at them. "How come Roboppy can't be Yuusaku's doctor?" he asked.

"Because she's a robot."

"Can't you make her a doctor too?"

He never considered Roboppy could be a doctor; that would involve the computer, and he already feared what Kusanagi has done by hooking Roboppy up to the screens on the wall. But Ryouken knew more about computers, so he would know if Roboppy could become his doctor.

A robot as a doctor ... Would he like that more than Jin? Would he be able to talk to a doctor like Kusanagi always told him to?

"She can't become a doctor," Kusanagi said. "Not like that. But she'll come along for the ride, all right? Speaking of that, let's get ready to go, Yuusaku. Back into the van and we'll go see Dr. Jin."

He ground his heels into the cement, but somehow he wound up back in the van and tucked under the glovebox with Ryouken. The two of them crunched together under the dashboard, knees tucked up to their chests. Roboppy sat on the front seat, buckled in with the seatbelt. As strange as the sight was to see a robot riding in the car, it brought a small smile to his face. She looked so silly up there, like if an elephant stood on a giant inflatable ball.

Ryouken only narrowed his eyes at the sight of Roboppy. "Why does she get to sit in the front seat?" he mumbled.

"You know why," Kusanagi told him.

"We are going to see Dr. Jin," Roboppy said, more of an announcement than an answer to anyone's question.

Yuusaku remained silent for the entire trip. Bits of light caught in his wide eyes, and he heard the car stop and start from the rumble of the engine. But he didn’t see anything properly until Kusanagi opened the passenger door for him and he stepped inside. The tall apartment building loomed over him with a shadow so long it stretched across the street. He felt swallowed up by the size of Jin's house, and one of his hands found Ryouken's sleeve.

The front doors swung open and Jin stepped out. As usual, he was dressed down—no scary white labcoat, no clopping black shoes. He looked like any other person off the streets, but Yuusaku still watched him embrace Kusanagi and then walk over to crouch in front of him.

"Hi there, Yuusaku. I heard you've had a busy past couple days."

His eyes flicked to Kusanagi.

"Can you introduce me to your new friend up there? She's such a lovely colour of blue, and I haven't seen a robot in quite some time."

Roboppy blinked at him. "Hello, Dr. Jin."

Jin's face broke into a bright smile. "Well I see she already knows my name."

He wished Roboppy had never met Dr. Jin. She blinked and beamed at him, but when Jin asked, "So how did you build her?" she couldn’t respond. He gnawed on his bottom lip, refusing to meet Jin's eyes.

"With Kusanagi."

"And did you use any tools?" Jin pressed.

Screwdriver, hammer, nails, and a bunch of other, bigger tools that only Kusanagi could use. He bit deeper into his lip and waited for Jin to sense his unease. Sure enough, Jin backed away after a moment and rose up to full height. From within his pocket he pulled out a small stack of papers—no, a book he realised after a moment, a little cookbook no bigger than a packet of matches. _How could that book hold a recipe?_ he wondered. Where was there space for even a single letter?

"Found this in a store a few days back and it reminded me of you. It's called 'The Tiniest Cookbook in the World: Small Recipes for Small Appetites.' I thought we could take a look at it together today. You can carry it back to the flat." And with that, Jin dropped the little book into his hand. It weighed no more than a single sheet of paper, and he held it out in fear that it would break apart the moment he touched the cover. But he didn’t move from his spot, eyes glued to Roboppy still buckled into her seat.

Jin spun on his heel not three steps in. "Yuusaku, we're heading up to the room now. Kusanagi and Ryouken will be waiting for you."

He shook his head and points to Roboppy. "He said she could come."

Kusanagi tilted his head to the side. "She's staying in the truck—"

Panic rose in his throat. "But you said ... Roboppy comes." His fingers tightened round the sweaty book, pinching the pages closed. Kusanagi said Roboppy could come—he knew it—

"I said she could come in the car, but she's going to wait here for you," Kusanagi continued, crouching down next to him. His hands trembled at his sides, and briefly Yuusaku flicked his gaze, watching for any sudden movement. The weight of the world crashed down on his shoulders and squished his lungs. He didn't want to go see Jin today, much less have to go alone again, not after they had just built Roboppy.

Still seated, Roboppy leaned forward, dragging the seatbelt with her. "Oh noes, Yuusaku is sad."

Like the break of a dam, tears dripped down his cheeks. "I w-want Roboppy."

 _Clip-clap_ came the footsteps, and he swung around, ready for Jin to pull him. But Jin stopped several inches away and crouched down too. "I have nothing wrong with Roboppy being in the flat," he said. "Thanks for asking, Yuusaku. That's all you had to do: say 'I want Roboppy to come.' And then she'll pop up to the flat with us." And with that, Jin unbuckled Roboppy and lifted her down onto the pavement. Her little, plastic wheels scratched on the rough ground, but she wheeled forward, one hand raised.

"Oh no, Yuusaku is crying."

Yuusaku rubbed the tears from his eyes, suddenly embarrassed by the display. Shirt sleeves damp, he balled them into clumps in his fists and stared down at his. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Roboppy standing there, still with her arm raised. Jin was crouched down too.

Then: "Come along, Yuusaku and Roboppy. Let's head up to the flat."

He stretched out his hand for Roboppy. She wouldn't know the way to go, so he led her up the ramp and through the door. The entryway was warm and sunny, and in the elevator, Roboppy's eyes widened at the dozens of buttons on the panel. He'd seen the size of the apartment building before, but this time it truly felt like Jin was leading them up to the stars in the elevator. When the doors swung open, Yuusaku marched on ahead with Roboppy.

"You remember the way," Jin said with a smile. He produced a key from his pocket and slipped it into the keyhole. "I'll let you show Roboppy around the flat then. She might need a tour."

He'd been in the flat many times, but the only room he'd ever ventured into was the living room with the big windows and the books on the table. At the entryway, he gazed down the corridor. What other rooms were in the house? He'd never thought of exploring, even when Jin had offered. Carefully, he toed off his shoes and padded down the corridor.

"Where are we going, Yuusaku?" Roboppy asked. Her wheels click-clacked on the hardwood, and in the quiet apartment, he could even hear the gentle whirs of her engines.

He led her straight down the hallway and into the largest room, another living room with a kitchen tucked into the corner. The room was much bigger than Kusanagi's hotdog truck, but it was still cosily filled with couches and chairs and a little kitchen tucked into one of the corners. Several cookbooks were arranged on small displays around the kitchen, open to pages of tomato-based appetizers and a creamy risotto.

"This is a new cookbook," Roboppy said, pointing the the pages. "Shall I record the recipes?"

Yuusaku nodded his head. He had to stand on his tiptoes to see the entire page, but Roboppy read it aloud to him, listing of first the ingredients and then the preparation instructions. Her voice, while robotic, was oddly soothing, a sort of hopeful chime ringing at the ends of her words. His heart panged when she stopped reading and turned back to him with flickering eyes.

Another cookbook. He needed to find her another cookbook.

As if moving on autopilot, he spun on his heel and dashed back into the living room where Jin had arranged all of the recipe books on the coffee table. Some of them he remembered from previous visits here, but he found a new one with chic, glossy pages, and brought it for Roboppy to read.

"This recipe," he said, pointing to the first page.

Roboppy read it aloud for him.

"Next one." Then the next one, and then the one after, and soon Roboppy had read the entire book aloud for him. Yuusaku flipped the book closed, crinkling it tightly to his chest. Once more, he spun on his heel, ready to dash back in and grab another book, when he caught sight of Jin sitting on one of the dining room chairs, flipping through the teeny-tiny cookbook he'd brought out with him when he came to collect him. In all his excitement of reading with Roboppy, he'd forgotten he was in Jin's apartment, much less than Jin was with him in the same room.

A single tremor ran down his spine, but he steeled himself and kept his chin raised.

Jin glanced over the top of his book. "You looked like you enjoyed that book."

He bounced his head up and down.

"What was your favourite recipe?"

He couldn't remember the name, but he flipped to the page and held it out for Roboppy to see. He whispered to her, "What's this one called?"

"Hotpot."

"We could cook that sometime, you know? I don't have the ingredients with me this time, but next time we could bake something small. Roboppy could even help."

He'd never cooked with Roboppy before. When it came time to help Kusanagi with dinner, it was always him and Ryouken at the counter tops, peeling potatoes or chopping vegetables or stirring ingredients in large pots. As little as he knew about robots, he worried Roboppy might get broken if she was cooking, but Jin seemed assured that she would be all right.

"Would you like that, Yuusaku? To cook with me and Roboppy next week?"

Up and down went his head, chin bouncing on his chest.

"What recipe would you like? I'll need to buy the ingredients ahead of time."

"Hotpot ... please."

Jin's smile widened, and he set the book down on the table. "I look forward to it. As I've heard from Kusanagi, you're quick the skilled cook."

A blush settled on his cheeks, and Yuusaku found himself smiling, albeit softly, down at his feet. Kusanagi had told him that before, but he'd never thought he'd hear it from someone else too.

"Yuusaku is a skilled cook," Roboppy repeated.

Cheeks burning, Yuusaku stumbled off down the hallway in search of another cookbook. He heard Roboppy trill after him, her little wheels rolling down the hardwood floor. In the living room, he settled down in front of the coffee table, filing through the books he'd already read and searching for the new ones Jin brought the library. Sunlight poured in through the tall windows, illuminating the glossy pages. For the rest of the time with Jin, he sat at the table with Roboppy, getting her to recite each and every recipe he came across.

And when Jin told him it was time to return to Kusanagi, for once Yuusaku felt like no time had passed at all.


	10. TEN

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fun fact: a lot of this was written just a couple hours ago bc it turned out i didn't pre-write this chapter in its entirety and only had 700 words of it ^^;; but it's good to know i can churn out 4k in one sitting ^^  
> also writing Ryouken as a child and Kusanagi as a guardian has encouraged me to develop a lot of hcs and sort of branch out their characters, so if they don't seem like the cyber-terrorist and the underground hacker - well, that's bc in this verse they just wouldn't have those careers, but essential aspects of their personality have remained.

Every day, Ryouken watched the students mill off to school in their crisp uniforms, wearing brightly-coloured backpacks. The younger children like Yuusaku all wore little yellow hats and sweaters, and sometimes a bright tag on their backpacks to signify their first year of primary school; but the older children, like him, looked like little adults in their blazers, pants, and skirts. They blended in with the adults heading to their office jobs.

Sighing, he cupped his cheek in his hand as another group of students crossed the market square. Neither Kusanagi nor Yuusaku were awake yet, and Ryouken found himself bored trying to keep quiet. He wanted to go outside. Kusanagi had taken him out just yesterday to the same, lonely strip of beach as before, this time bundled up even more warmly against the frosty wind and icy waters. Yuusaku had loved it, kicking frozen sand with his boots and throwing sticks into the dark waters; but he'd spent most of the time wandering as far as Kusanagi would let him explore the beach strand, searching for anyone else along the coast.

On the front seats were the workbooks Kusanagi had bought him: maths and grammar booklets with brightly coloured pages, teaching him how to write new kanji or solve addition and subtraction problems. He'd completed most of the problems already, and saved the last few pages for tomorrow—now today—when he'd be bored out of his mind to finish them. But the books no longer looked appealing with their glossy pages and easy examples. He'd much rather head outside.

He jumped when Kusanagi stumbled out of bed, rubbing sleep from his eyes. Yuusaku startled awake at once too, sucking in a deep breath with his eyes wide and glassy. He stilled when Kusanagi patted him on the head and mumbled, "G'morning." Then he glanced up at Ryouken, turned round on the front seat. "Awake early? You could have come and gotten me. Are you hungry?"

"It's fine," Ryouken said, slipping down from the seats. He pulled open the kitchen drawers and searched for the frying pan. "Eggs?"

"Eggs. Yuusaku, toast?"

Yuusaku stumbled out of bed, rubbing the sleep from his eyes while once hand blindly searched for the toast. Ryouken watched him wander around the kitchen, still half-asleep, before he turned back to cracking eggs into the pan and stirring them. He'd never cooked breakfast back home with his father; most days, his father wasn't even home for breakfast or dinner, and his meals would be in the fridge to reheat. But Kusanagi only ever pre-prepared ingredients for his hotdog shop, so they cooked every morning together: the three of them at the kitchen counter, a space barely large enough for one person, much less two.

It was probably for Yuusaku's sake. He liked cooking most of all, eagerly mixing up ingredients. If he didn't know the recipe, he'd call on Roboppy to help him; she sat at the end of the hallway, closest to Yuusaku, reading aloud the ingredients on the egg carton.

"Eggs,” Roboppy told him.

Yuusaku shook them once. "Just eggs?" 

"Just eggs."

Kusanagi chuckled deep in his throat. "What else did you think was going be on that list?"

"Yolk."

"That's still part of the egg, silly."

Eggs successfully blended, he lifted the pan onto the stove and flicked on the gas burner. Hot flames singed the bottom of the pan, and quickly he began to mix up the eggs before they stuck to the bottom of the pan. It wasn't difficult by any means, and by the time they were soft and fluffy, Kusanagi and Yuusaku had finished buttering the toast and pouring blueberries into a small, glass bowl.

They carried the meal out to the front of the van, and Kusanagi pulled up several of the metal chairs and tables. Ryouken and Yuusaku clambered up into their seats and arranged the plates for the three of them, and waited for Kusanagi to join them.

Such was the routine every morning. Breakfast first, then preparing the day's ingredients; then Kusanagi would start work and they would amuse themselves until he closed shop.

Ryouken piled his plate high with eggs and blueberries. A single slice of toast sat in the furthest corner of his plate; Kusanagi would worry if he didn't eat it, as he did whenever Yuusaku insisted all he needed to eat were toast triangles and a handful of blueberries. Next to him, Roboppy stood with her flickering, albeit unblinking, eyes watching him. The robot never left them alone, and no matter where Ryouken wandered, Roboppy was always there like a watchdog. She put Yuusaku at ease, but he only felt worse with her around.

"Can we go to the beach tonight?" Ryouken asked, twirling his fork around on his plate.

Kusanagi bit into a slice of toast. "Hm? Didn't we go just last night?"

"To a different part of the beach," he asked.

"I don't really think there's any other beach to explore, at least not one that isn't an hour’s drive up into the middle of nowhere."

Ryouken held himself back from pointing out that the beach was  _ just across the street from them.  _ He'd watched the area last night and at most two people had ventured onto the shores. It was too cold for anyone to want to walk on hard, frosty sand or get their toes wet. The wind was angriest down by the water, and there were hardly people  _ outside,  _ much less on the coast. It would be the perfect opportunity for him to go explore, but he knew that Kusanagi was playing dumb.

For Yuusaku's sake.

"We could go to the beach again," Yuusaku said, smiling over the top of his cup.

Ryouken forced a smile onto his face. "Can we, Kusanagi?" he said.

A large, rough hand ruffled through his hair. Yuusaku giggled into his cup, blowing bubbles; Ryouken let his head loll back and forth, smiling just wide enough that Yuusaku and Kusanagi could see him.

Once breakfast was complete, they slipped back indoors and began to prepare the day's ingredients. He chopped vegetables and set them in silver trays. Kusanagi let him pop the van door open, and he tasted the salty air on his lips. He wouldn't be allowed outdoors until the evening when they closed shop and ate dinner.

"Do you have any more workbooks to complete? I need to grab some milk tonight, so I can pick one up while I'm out."

"Maybe just one," he said. It wasn't any fun to sit on the front seats and write out math problems, not when he couldn't be in a class of students all writing and studying together. Not when he was sitting by himself, knees tucked up to his chest, and listening to Yuusaku ask Roboppy again and again how to read the recipes in his books.

And thus began the day. Once more, again and again, the same routine. He took as long as he could solving each of the math problems, and when he was done he borrowed one of Yuusaku's cookbooks and tried to copy the characters. His father always told him the stroke order was the most important part, and he'd learnt in another book the proper order.

"You can do that?" Yuusaku popped his head over the seat, resting his chin on one of the cushions.

Ryouken only glanced up for a moment. "I'm learning how to."

"You learn that in school?" Yuusaku asked.

A clench of his heart. Not once had he ever stepped foot in the classroom.

When he kept quiet, Yuusaku only watched him with wide eyes, until he brought Roboppy over and asked her to read from the book. Ryouken clenched his pencil with all his strength as he tried to ignore Roboppy's chilling monotonic voice read out each of the sentences he'd copied in large, shaky print. She stayed with him for the rest of the afternoon, and Yuusaku never strayed far from him either, spending most of his time watching him write.

The sun came and fell over the horizon, and when Kusanagi closed shop, it was dark enough to need the exterior lights. He snapped closed the side window, stored all his ingredients, and left the dishes in the sink to be washed later. After a long day of work, he always looked more haggard and older; sweat on his brow, a slight tremble to his hands. But instead of sitting down, he stretched, yawned, and said, "All right, I'll be back from the store in an hour. If you're hungry, bread or oranges are on the counter."

Without another word, he slipped out of the van. Ryouken listened for the click of the lock, and when he did, his eyes flicked to the side of a cupboard. There was a spare key up there in case they lost the original or locked themselves out of the van—several keys too, but Ryouken knew which one was for the side door. Kusanagi would be out for a while too; an hour was a long time.

He slipped off the seat. The counter was high, but he pushed himself up and used the drawer handles as footholds. He crawled across the counter and reached up for the keys.

"What're you doing?" Yuusaku asked from the floor.

"Going to the beach."

Yuusaku's wide eyes grew wider. "But Kusanagi ..."

"Won't know I'm gone."

"But ..."

Pins and needles shot through the bottoms of his feet as he landed on the floor, keys in hand. "You can't leave the van," Ryouken said. Yuusaku couldn't be seen by anyone, even with a hat on. And he was too scared of the outside world, sometimes even frightened by the customers at the shop window. Ryouken slipped his black hat on and donned his jacket. Without his white hair visible, no one would recognise him. He wasn't scared of people. No one was coming to hurt him.

Yuusaku's hands fisted into his shirt. "What if something bad happens?"

Nothing bad would happen to him. No one wanted to hurt him. No one would take him back. If his father was even looking for him, he was looking for Yuusaku too.

"I'll come right back," he said and pressed a fist over his chest. "Promise." Then he unlocked the door and slipped outside. He could barely reach the door to lock it again, but he managed and hopped down onto the pavement. At night, the market square was empty. The other food truck had gone away, and the only people milling around were overtime business workers wearing the same, haggard expressions Kusanagi left with. They didn't even bat an eye as he headed towards the beach.

It was even quieter down there—not quiet in terms of noise, but in terms of people-traffic. The waves were drums and the wind cymbals, knocking together to create a violet cacophony. He pressed his hands over his ears and pulled his toque down as far as he could. He buried his face into his jacket collar, longing for a scarf or mittens; in all his rush, he'd forgotten both. But he couldn't head back, not without worrying Yuusaku further. He had one long hour to explore the beach. He wouldn't let this opportunity slip away.

The steps crunched with old barnacles under his feet. Salty water had misted the steps too, and he held tightly to the handrail as he made his way onto the shore. The sand felt as solid as the concrete; grisly and dark, only marred by driftwood and boulders poking upwards. In the meagre street- and moonlight, he could only see the glimmer of white shells on the shore. He knelt down and plucked one into his hand. Broken, but still a shell. He and Yuusaku had found shells just like this at the other beach, and they'd made flags out of them.

He wandered further down the beach. He couldn't kick the sand here since it had frozen over, but in places his shoes broke through the layer of ice and the resulting crack sounded like gunfire. The water sounded further away than the edge of the world; he only found it when, after wandering out towards the sea, his shoes met cold water.

Oh.

Leaping back, he shook his wet shoes. They were soaked. Bits of seaweed had caught onto his shoelaces, and he brushed them away with chilled, pink fingers. He'd need a good lie to tell Kusanagi, like he spilled a cup of water on his shoes. Or he'd got them wet on the morning dew and they hadn't dried.

His heart leapt into his throat when he heard a voice—several voices, loud and raucous. They didn't sound like Kusanagi, nor like any adult, too loud and high-pitched. They were laughing too, and in the distance he could see their shadowy figures: three of them standing by one of the lampposts. The tallest of the trio looked like their leader, arms crossed over his chest. There was another boy with bright eyes who caught sight of him, and the third boy, a short, stocky child, who raised a quivering hand at him.

"Hey!" the middle boy said, waving his arms back and forth. "You there, yeah, you!"

"Maybe he's lost," he heard the third, shortest boy say.

The tallest boy nodded and approached. Ryouken took a step back. He wasn't supposed to talk to strangers. No one was supposed to know his name or see his white hair, and he wasn't supposed to even be out of the van, much less chatting with other children. But Kusanagi wouldn't learn of any of this, and—

These were schoolboys. His age, or maybe a year or two older. They were much taller than him and wearing dark school uniforms trimmed with electric-blue fabric. By their uniform, they were from the same school, and by their ties, the same grade.

"How old are you?" the middle boy asked.

"Eight," Ryouken said, puffing out his chest.

"Do you go to school around here?" the oldest boy asked.

The middle boy cut in. "Lightning, he's not from our school."

"Maybe he's from City Primary—"

"No, Earth, he's not even wearing their uniform."

"I'm not from any school," Ryouken said.

"That so?" Lightning said. He swatted at the middle boy, calling him Ai, but Lightning's gaze remained on him. Ryouken felt his shoulder droop down; this older boy was much, much taller than him, and he looked like he could even be in middle school. Something about his stare had him stiffening, and yet he kept his chin up and his gaze even.

"I study every day."

"How come?" Ai asked. "If you don't have to go to school, why would you study?"

"Because I like to," he said simply. The three boys were looking at him, each with their own brand of stare. They looked like the schoolboys who walked by the truck, but now that he was in front of them, they seemed much more intimidating and mature. He'd never thought that students were so much bigger than him.

"We were throwing rocks," Earth said. The wind tore most of his voice away, but a sliver of his words made it to Ryouken. In Earth's hands he held several flat stones, perfect for skipping across the waves. "You can have one."

"I want this one," Ai said, plucking the largest one from the pile. "It'll go the furthest."

Lightning rubbed his chin. "That's not always the case." He picked one of the flattest one from the pile, tossing it from mittened hand to mittened hand.

Earth smiled up at him. "Which one would you like ..."

"Kusanagi," he said.

Ai's head popped up from where he'd been collecting more flat skipping stones. "Ain't that that hotdog guy's name?"

"I-I guess we have the same name," Ryouken said, forcing a smile. He picked out the flatter of the two stones Earth held out for him. It was slightly damp between his thumb and forefinger, and when he held it in his palm, there was a weight to one side. Not a perfect stone, but better than the boulder-like one Ai had picked and the bumpy, barnacled stone Earth was left with.

The four boy gathered on the shore, toes dipped into the icy ocean. There was enough space between each of them that they could wind their arms back. A single moonbeam shot across the water, illuminating their path. Even without instructions, Ryouken knew the game: skip your stone the most; furthest wouldn't matter, Lightning pointed out, when Ai suggested he just chuck his rock as far as he could. No one had said anything about a competition, but the thought was heavy on his mind.

Get first.

Win.

"Earth, you first."

He tossed the stone to the side. It bounced twice before plopping into the dark sea.

"Ai."

One loud  _ plop!.,  _ followed by a muttered, "Fuck."

"My turn."

Lightning swung his arm to the side. It should have sailed into the sea with such an angle, and yet it skittered on the sea as if it were made of ice. Ripples bounced around it, so many that the sea shivered and the moonlight scattered with fragmented stars. Not only did it travel far, Ryouken couldn't even begin to count the ripples—it had to have been at least twenty, possibly thirty.

Lightning wasn't smiling at him, but the leer of his eyes was something worse. Pride.

"Your turn."

Ryouken held his arm back. Kusanagi had taught him and Yuusaku how to skip rocks. The stone pressed against the tender webbing between his thumb and forefinger. He shivered. Ready. Sucked in a deep breath.

His arm swung forward in a graceful arc.

_ Plop! _

"Does that mean I'm not last?" Ai said, rolling back and forth on the balls of his heels. "Best two out of three?"

Lightning shrugged and turned away.

Ryouken balled his hands into fists. He wanted to spin around and demand another chance, but Lightning seemed so much older than him. So much more mature. All the boys did too, wearing their prim uniforms, shiny shoes and glossy buttons on their sleek blazers. He'd never get to wear an outfit like that. Never get to walk to school with a backpack on his shoulders. Never get to each lunch. He'd never make a single friend, not once, not ever.

"We've got to go home now." Earth stood in front of him, hands nestled together. "So ... see you."

"See ya!" Ai said, waving his arm back and forth. He hopped up onto the sidewalk and dashed away, leaving only Lightning behind. He stood like a single, untouchable light in the vast darkness.

"If see we you again," he said, and turnt on his heel.

He was alone on the beach. Alone, with only the churn of the waves and the whistle of the wind to keep him company. The black night stretched out far and wide, and the moon no longer seemed to kiss the ground with its moonlight. In fact, the only light he could see was out in the distance, a lone glow in the middle of the sky. He squinted to see further, spot the way that a dark shadow snaked up towards the galaxy, the way dim street lights lined a driveway.

He hadn't seen his house in ages. Longer than ages maybe. He knew Kusanagi's truck wasn't far, but since running away he'd never looked back, only forward. But his house was still on the hill and a single light—the living room light—glowed out the large bay windows. The house looked like a lighthouse from the beach, and he wondered how many other people had made that mistake. Had he always lived so high in the mountains, so far away from the city? Had he and Yuusaku wandered down such a long driveway. 

He stepped back onto the road and stood at the sidewalk. The lights lined the hill all the way to the top, where he could see the shadow of his front door.

He could go home.

Yuusaku could never return; Father could never find Yuusaku. But Father would never do anything bad to him. He wouldn't lock him away in the basement and hurt him. He wouldn't get in trouble. If he returned home, he could go back to playing with his toys and completing workbooks and living his solitary life on the top of the mountain, waiting for Father to come home.

Footsteps echoed behind him.

Wind rushed in his ears.

Time to return home.

He stepped—

A hand snatched his wrist. "Ryouken!"

The house seemed so much further away.

Kusanagi pulled him forward, turning him away from the house. In the meagre streetlight, he couldn't see much of Kusanagi's face, but his voice had a strange, pitched quality to it, worse than the noise he made and the curses he sputtered when he burnt his hands on the grill. He held tightly to Ryouken's wrist and kept tugging him forward..

Ryouken didn't even consider pulling away until Kusanagi stopped at the bench outside the truck. The lights were dim, and unlike his house—his first home—the truck wasn't on some faraway hill. They were back in the square.

He wanted to feel angry. Wanted anger to boil him from the inside. Wanted Kusanagi to shout at him.

Kusanagi's firm arms wrapped around him and pulled him close. "I f-found you." His sweater smelt like oil and grease and there was a dark patch that he wondered might be stained ketchup. He was warm too, and dazedly Ryouken realised that his breath was making little mists, and that his cheeks and nose were itchy and cold.

"Are you OK?"

Ryouken nodded his head.

"Why then?"

He could only shrug.

"Ryouken—"

"It's only Yuusaku who would get hurt," he said to the floor. "Only Yuusaku who would be in trouble."

"That's not what I mean—"

"Father only did bad things to Yuusaku." He had to lift his head and jut out his chin to say the words clearly, but looking in Kusanagi's eyes was far easier than looking at Lightning. "T-that's why he can't go outside, but if I go out, nothing bad will happen, n-nothing." His throat pinched together and he coughed. Kusanagi was becoming blurrier, and when he squinted his eyes it became harder to see anything. "I-I just wanted to go outside, and you d-didn't say—you never said I couldn't, not really—"

A cough caught in his throat and he shoved himself back. He scrubbed his eyes with his sleeve, only making them more itchy and watery. The cold nipped at his cheeks and chin, both damp. "You never let me go to the beach, even when—when you know that Father only hurt Yuusaku. You know that—you told Jin that! I heard you—and that's why Yuusaku goes to Jin."

Kusanagi rubbed a napkin over his cheeks. "Is that what has you worked up?"

"I wanted to go o-outside." A clench of fists. He wouldn't wail. He wouldn't cry. Only Yuusaku cried.

"Did you talk to anyone?"

He shook his head.

"Ryouken—"

"I w-want to go to school."

He expected a retort. A gruff, grumbly sort of retort that Father would say whenever he demanded too much. He waited for it with his chin raised and wobbling, his eyes leaking. With each second, his chest seized with more sobs, and he wished Kusanagi would say anything—even a ‘no’—just so that the suspense wouldn't burst a hole in his chest.

"Is that what this is about?"

"Y-you said no, but everyone else—everyone else is going to school, and I couldn't go with Father so why not with you, what's the same, and I don't want to stay inside, b-but—" He sniffled and scrubbed at his face once more. "I want to go home."

Home. His home on the hill with his father who loved him. Who cooked food for him. Who came home each night and read him a story. That was his old life. That was the life he loved.

Yuusaku deserved a better life. A happier life. One with Kusanagi in the hotdog truck. He was happier and safer out of the basement.

"I want to go home."

Kusanagi had hugged him before, once or twice, but this hug felt different. Warmer. He buried his face into the sweater until his vision was black and fuzzy, but he was awake, feeling the hand settling along his shoulder blades and patting him in a slow, steady rhythm. Not even the chilly near-winter air could slip between them. Ryouken let himself be held for a moment longer, and then mumbled into the sweater, "I want to go home."

Again.

And again, each time a little softer, each time a little raspier.

Kusanagi kept on holding him.

"My father won't hurt me," he said then. "He never hurt me. I'm bad for running away. I'm ... I'm bad."

A pat on the shoulder.

"Let me go."

Kusanagi's hands slipped off him. Ryouken scrubbed under his eyes and nose with his sleeve. His legs tensed, ready to run up the hill. He could run home. He wasn't as fast as Kusanagi, but he could run far enough and hide away. But just like the stone throwing contest, he couldn't win. He couldn't make it far enough. Only Kusanagi looked like none of the boys from the beach, confident or unconfident but still mature students. Kusanagi just looked like the guy from the first night who saw them on the bench and gave them hotdogs. He looked like the Kusanagi who brought him to the park and the beach, and who said goodbye to him that evening. He should have been angry, pinched features and stern eyes—but only Ryouken had his face pinched together and his hands fisted in his lap. Shame burned his cheeks.

"How about we talk to Jin—"

"No—"

"About this idea of going to school, or even going out. Because frankly I don't know what to do sometimes."

Ryouken blinked at him. Kusanagi had his eyes on his lap, but his gaze extended even further, like he was looking into his own thoughts.

"Sometimes I don't know where to go and what to do, and I'm sorry you're so sad that we aren't doing anything. I was only considering Yuusaku and what he could do—but you ..." He patted him once on the shoulder. "I bet you want to be a normal kid, huh? A normal kid who goes to parks and plays on the playground."

"But I did something bad—"

"No. No, Ryouken, you did nothing wrong."

"You d-don't know that."

"I do. And it's no fun to be cooped up in the van all day. So let's ask Jin tomorrow what we can do—he knows more than me, even though he's my little brother, and he'll have some ideas. All right? But." Kusanagi's voice dropped lower. "Sneaking out of the van while I am gone scared me. A lot. You cannot run off on your own, and especially not without telling me. I came home and found Yuusaku in tears, saying that you left."

Ryouken chewed on his lip. When Kusanagi said it like that then it made it sound like he was some criminal who stole a valuable item. But he held his tongue still.

"I'm sorry I didn't listen to you. I didn't listen many times. So this time, I'll listen. We'll go talk to Jin and see what we can do."

"Promise?"

Kusanagi pressed a hand over his heart. "I promise. Now come on, you're going to catch a cold being out here like this."

Ryouken rubbed at his face, cleaning away the last of the moisture. He patted his hat with one hand and said, "I dressed warmly."

"Saving grace."

They slipped off the bench and headed towards the truck. At the steps, Ryouken hesitated. He'd been in that truck for days, weeks, and maybe even a month if he knew how long it had been since he'd run away. He'd been in that truck so long he knew how many tiles were on the ceiling and how many pans in each of the cupboards. He knew more about that truck than he did about his own house on the hill, so far away and a distant memory.

But that home only had his Father.

And here—here had Yuusaku, sitting on the bed with one hand clenching Roboppy's claw. His smile split across his pale face and he looked ready to leap off the bed, only hesitating from the terrible fear that always gripped him. 

He couldn't stay cooped up in this van forever.

But he could stay here—for Yuusaku.


	11. ELEVEN

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (so i need to stop writing my chapters on the day XD) but hey, i can also tell you that at the same time as i'm writing this fic, i'm also writing a mystery fic with established relationship datastorm that will be posted in August for the YGO Big Bang. it's my third year participating in the event and i am oh-so-excited for my new fic! i've stepped out of my comfort zone a bit with this one by writing a mystery fic, but it's still the usual Lily Special with fluff, angst, and scenery porn descriptions, so please look forward to that new fic soon!
> 
> also thank you SO much for the comments/kudos/bookmarks/views, and to everyone who's reached out to me on tumblr - i'm happy you love this fic as much as i do ! >w<

True to his word, Ryouken got to talk with Jin. He stood at the door, bouncing back and forth on his heels. Yuusaku and Kusanagi had come up too; Yuusaku hung back, one hand clinging to Roboppy. They must have looked like quite the crowd gathered around Jin's front door, but when it opened, Jin only smiled warmly at them.

"Good to see you," he said. "Shouichi, you coming in with him, or ..."

"I'll leave him with you."

"All right. Ryouken." He jumped at his name. "Come on in. You haven't been in my house before, have you?"

He shook his head and stepped through the doorway. As the door closed behind him, a pang of worry shot through his stomach. He wasn't scared, not of Jin nor this house, nor about where Kusanagi and Yuusaku would go while he was away. But stepping into this new building made his stomach flip-flop and his ears ring, and he stayed in the doorway while Jin sauntered down the hall. He was beginning to understand just why Yuusaku came back from his visits here so pale and withdrawn.

Jin never turned around to call him back. 

From his spot, Ryouken could see down the hallway where various doors led to rooms. The closest room to him looked like the living room, and the wooden coffee table and sweeping voiles drew him towards the space. There were some cookbooks on the table, but he imagined there were even more when Yuusaku came to visit. He was always talking about the books he and Jin read together.

Ryouken thumbed through the pages. There were other picture books and some magazines of cars, nature, and space. There were one or two work books too, and he raised an eyebrow. Who put children's school books in their living room?

"Would you like any water or juice?" Jin asked.

Ryouken held out the books for him. "Are you a teacher?"

"A student, actually," Jin said. "I brought those in case you or Yuusaku would be interested in studying. Kusanagi says you're both interested in school."

"Only me," Ryouken said, and he felt a sigh build in his lungs. "Yuusaku's too scared to go to school."

He flipped through one of the manuals. It looked like the exact copy of a workbook his father had given him—one that he hadn't completed before he ran away. Some of the problems looked too complex, and he flipped back and forth until he could find the last lesson he remembered learning: something about grammar and second-year kanji. He kept one eye pricked in case Jin came close, but he only slipped into the room and settled on the couch, nursing a flower-printed coffee mug.

"Kusanagi said you would help me go to school," Ryouken said after a moment. He lifted his gaze from the book, peering over top the colourful pages. "Is that right?"

"Correct," Jin said, taking a deep sip from the mug.

"So not just books, but going to school too."

"What is it in school that really excites you?" Jin asked.

Ryouken blinked. He had expected a yes or a no sort of answer that would tell him whether Jin was actually going to enroll him in school. This sort of question only drew a blank in his head. Everything, he supposed. Everything from the uniforms to the classwork to the classmates to the desk; to the activities and learning and all the fun things that every other eight-year-old boy seemed to be doing. He thought running away would have brought more joy into his life. That running away didn't have to be just for Yuusaku's sake.

In the end, he could only shrug. "I dunno." Then another shrug. "Everyone else goes to school."

"Did you go to school before?"

He shook his head.

"But you want to."

"Kusanagi said so."

Jin kept on nodding, his lips were firmly pressed together, and his hands kept squeezing the cup. Ryouken thought it might shatter from the force, and he pressed his own hands together.

"Kusanagi promised," he tried again. "He said he would—a-and that's why I have to talk with you."

A stone caught in his throat when he saw Jin open and close his mouth like a rusty trap door.

"Nothing bad will happen to me—just Yuusaku."

"Ryouken—"

"I'll tell you something—"

"Ryouken."

He felt himself seize up, his breath catching in his lungs. In one sharp exhale, he let out all the breaths he'd been holding in. Unlike Kusanagi who seemed to jump when he cried or panicked, or especially when Yuusaku cried or panicked, Jin remained calm. He wasn't holding the cup tightly. He wasn't doing anything but sitting still on the sofa, legs crossed at the ankles, sunlight spilling onto the corner of his trousers and the hem of his sweater.

"I'm going to talk frankly because I think you know what's going on. You and Yuusaku are with Kusanagi to keep you away from your father. You have been since you left. And that's why he keeps you home sometimes—to make sure you're both safe."

"But my father—"

"Is looking for you too," Jin cut in. He set the mug down on a little, glass table next to the arm of the couch and leaned forward. "And I know that can be upsetting to hear when you want to go to school. So." He paused, just long enough for Ryouken to feel himself tilt forward too, body quivering in anticipation. "What if you went to school with me?"

A blink. "With you?"

"To university. You could come to classes with me and learn. It might be a bit much for you, and I doubt it's the exact experience you were looking for—but right now, it's what I can offer."

University. His father went to the university sometimes, or he had gone before; Ryouken couldn't remember the details. But the word sounded large and important, and he imagined some very special people going to the university.

"Do you wear a uniform?"

"I don't, but you can. Would you like to?"

Subconsciously, his hand rose to his neck where he imagined his tie would go. He'd have a crisp, white shirt too, and black trousers and shiny shoes. He'd wear a jacket too, maybe with a little emblem on it. Kusanagi would have something for him. He wouldn't go to a school like the other boys, but it would be a school. The more he thought about it, the happier his heart began to feel. He pictured himself hopping off the front step of Kusanagi’s truck and rushing down the plaza road, off towards the busy city. He'd be going to school just like everyone else.

"Could I?"

He didn't even notice the words leave his mouth.

"If you'd like," Jin said. "I'll talk with Kusanagi and see what we can do."

A buzz ran down his spine. What—what would university be like? In the mornings, he saw students and office workers, never university students. What did they look like? And did they study like a regular student, or was there something more? Thousands of questions bounced in his head, and when he opened his mouth, he couldn’t pick just one, or even part of one, and what spewed from his lips were a series of sputters.

"Want to know a bit about school?" Jin asked.

"Yes," he said with a firm nod.

Jin stood up from the couch and headed back into the room. He returned with a black backpack, and from within he pulled out several clear dividers and narrow folders. He set these on the coffee table for Ryouken to see, and eagerly Ryouken flipped the first page open. Inside were handwritten notes, mainly writing but some small drawings and diagrams. They must have been in Jin's handwriting, and his elegant print belied the many difficult kanji Ryouken struggled to read. He could only pick out a handful of words like "brain" and "strength" and those two didn't make sense together.

"What class is this?" Ryouken asked.

"Psychology."

"Hm?"

"The study of the mind. I'm sort of like a brain doctor."

He couldn't raise his head from the delicate notes before him, but Jin's words brought even more questions to mind. There were drawings of brains in the notes though, and in the printouts and workbooks that also lied on the table. University seemed to have a lot more work than primary school.

Jin explained to him that he took notes every day and listened to lectures by various professors. Sometimes there were labs, which he explained were like field trips to other parts of the school. Mostly, he took notes and read textbooks—lots of notes and lots more reading to do.

It wasn't like school, Ryouken realised. It wasn't like going to class and sitting with peers and doing science experiments in the sink and reciting lines from textbooks. University would be much different from the school he always imagined. Yet the fancy books before him were more interesting than the workbooks Kusanagi had bought him, and the promise of walking to school in a uniform was the greatest wish of them all.

"When do you go to school?"

"In two days," Jin said. "I'll talk to my professor and get permission for you to attend. You'll have to promise to be quiet and listen."

"I promise."

"Good." Jin piled the books together into one tall, leaning tower. Then he stood up and extended a warm hand. "Shall we go tell Kusanagi?"

He ended up telling Kusanagi as soon as he poked his head out the van window. 

"I'm going to university in two days, and so I need a uniform and a backpack, and a notebook so I can take notes like Jin. He said he'd take me, he promised me too, and—"

Kusanagi chuckled out a laugh. "You've been busy making plans, I see. Well, perhaps we'll head off to the store. Hats on, all right?"

Ryouken touched the top of his white hair. "Will I have to wear a hat at school too?"

Kusanagi and Jin both rubbed their chins, looking far too much like siblings. Ryouken shirked back under their gaze. He hadn't thought about how he wouldn't look like himself at school, and he figured that if Jin was letting him leave the van, then that meant he shouldn't need to hide. But even Jin looked worried. He and Kusanagi kept glancing at each other like they were transmitting secret messages just by glances and head tilts.

"It's just for a couple hours," Kusanagi said at last. "We'll see how it goes, and if not ..."

_ If not, what?  _ Ryouken thought. What did Kusanagi plan to do?

Jin smiled down at him. "It will be fine, Ryouken. Pick out a nice uniform, and I'll see you in two days."

Two days. It would feel like an awfully long time, but then again, it had been even longer since he last left the house and went to town, or went to school.

In the van, Yuusaku peered over the dashboard and through the window. A slight tremble in his lips showed that he wasn't too keen on being anywhere near Jin's place, but he seemed interested enough in the conversation, and brave enough to raise his head. Ryouken headed round the van and hopped into the passenger seat next to him.

"Do you ever want to go to school?" he asked.

Yuusaku shook his head.

"Maybe someday you will. Someday. When you're all better."

Yuusaku toyed with the buttons on his cardigan. "Can you bring me back a book?"

A blink. "One Roboppy can read to you?"

Yuusaku nodded. He tilted his head towards the stacks of books in the back of the van; the collection had grown since then, but Yuusaku frowned at them. "I've read them all, you know."

"Are you bored of them?" Ryouken couldn't help the teasing tone in his voice, and he smothered a chuckle when Yuusaku blushed and fiddled with the bottom of his cardigan. "You read the same books every day—it's about time you got sick of them."

Yuusaku kept his gaze down at his knees, but the colour in his cheeks remained, a pale sunset of pink dotting the top of his cheeks and under his bright eyes. "Another book would be nice," he said. "One that you like, maybe. Or ... one like we found at the library."

He didn't read many books. At home, books were read to him at night, but for some reason, he couldn't remember the books his father read aloud. He could hardly remember his father's face, or his old bedroom. Then, like the flick of a light switch, he remembered: a book about sailboats. About stars in the sea. A book that he read every night, much like Yuusaku read every night. He wanted to bang himself over the head for forgetting it, but now that it was in his mind, he could recite each word.

_ Stardust Road. _

"I'll bring you back a back a special book," Ryouken said. "And a textbook so you can study too. Dr. Jin says he's learning about  _ psychology." _

Yuusaku tilted his head to the side, but he seemed to know that, whatever that word meant, it was quite important. "That's why he's a doctor."

"A psychology doctor."

Kusanagi closed the driver's side window and started up the van. Ryouken slid down under the dashbox, and Yuusaku tucked in next to him. The van gave a short sputter then took off down the road. Ryouken watched the window from his spot on the ground; the sliver of window gave only a meager view of the tree tops and blue sky, but when he closed his eyes, he could hear the thrum of cars and pedestrians, and occasionally Kusanagi's muttered curses when someone cut in front of him.

He kept his eyes closed until the van pulled to a stop and they climbed out.

"Where's this?"

It didn't look like the store they visited last time. That had been in a little shop on the bottom floor of the building, tucked between two other tiny stores. This place looked  _ massive,  _ like a movie theater or an office tower. This would have been the sort of building his father frequented, but he knew Kusanagi would never take him to such a place. But it was still a lovely building—glass walls, a large, revolving door, and inside, what appeared to be  _ hundreds  _ of shops all lined together.

"I figured we'd check out the mall and hit a couple stores. Yuusaku? Hold onto my and Ryouken's hands."

A small, clammy hand slipped into his own. Yuusaku's eyes were as wide as the revolving door.

"It'll be all right," Ryouken said. He patted his own toque. "No one knows it's us."

Inside the mall, Ryouken figured that, even if they didn't have toques on, no one would have recognised them. It was busier than the subway station, and people were milling around together, bumping shoulders and purses without a single glance. He'd only been in a place so busy once—when Father took him to the fair—and even then he'd rode on his shoulders to not get bonked, tripped, or stepped on. Kusanagi held their hands and guided them through the crowds, and at the first sight of a clothing store they tumbled inside.

Like the thrift store they'd first visited, this shop had clothing of all colours and sizes hanging on wire racks and folded neatly on tables. But towards the back were uniforms, and Ryouken broke ahead to see them first. Without the school's emblems or crests, they looked rather plain compared to what the boys at the beach had worn, but they were uniforms: crisp, professional school attire.

Yuusaku pressed his hand to the blazer and pulled a face. "Scratchy."

"It's what adults wear," Ryouken told him. Father's suits had always been stiff and scratchy too, as if adults were meant to grow out of comfortable attire.

Kusanagi pulled various jackets and pants off the hooks. "Turn round," he said, spinning him to the side so that he could lie the jacket across his back. He tried again with the next jacket, and then passed it to Yuusaku. "This jacket ... and these pants. There. Uniform."

"What about the tie?"

Kusanagi paused. "Do you still wear a tie?"

"The other boys did ..."

But there weren't any ties hanging. They must have been what you bought at the start of the school semester; he remembered seeing different ties on the students walking round the main square.

"I have something at home that might work then."

They paid for the attire at the cashier, and he didn't miss the way Yuusaku stood up straight so he could carry the bag out of the shop. At the bookstore, they picked out plain notebooks and pencils, and a small backpack to carry them around in. He dragged his fingers over the lined pages and clicked the spiral-bound-metal holding them together.

"Can you write?" he asked Yuusaku.

Yuusaku shook his head.

Ryouken dragged him down the bookstore, past the children’s books where he didn’t see  _ Stardust Road,  _ until he stopped at one of the workbook sections. He'd completed many of these already, and they all looked like baby books to him. But Yuusaku hadn't gone to school before, and he probably thought these all looked like adult grammar books. He plucked out one of the kindergarten books: a brightly-coloured, thin paperback.

"To learn how to write," he said.

"Can Roboppy practice?" Yuusaku asked. She'd been at his side the entire time, but Kusanagi had powered her off in case she spoke out of turn and started calling out, "Hello, Yuusaku!"

She didn't have hands, nor did she look capable of writing. To him, she only seemed good for reading aloud recipes and getting in the way and blocking the narrow corridor in the van, but he simply shrugged. "Maybe if you taped a pen to her hand."

Yuusaku chewed on his lip, then carried the book over to Kusanagi.

They paid for the books, and once more headed out into the mob. Ryouken bounced on his heels, his backpack a firm weight behind him. With straps over his shoulders, he could weave past elbows and hanging purses with ease, and his heart skipped a beat when he saw Kusanagi heading not towards the van or the door outside, but to a cafe just tucked off from the entrance.

It was Yuusaku who spoke up, tugging excitedly on Roboppy's arm. "Can we?"

"A treat."

Kusanagi led them into the cafe, past the mahogany tables and rich, amber lighting, to where a display case showed the day's baking. There were enough pies, cakes, and small delicacies to make a rich king blush. Ryouken pressed his nose to the glass at the sight of tarts stacked high with fruit and dripping with golden syrup. Yuusaku had his eyes set on the plainer but no less sweet desserts: vanilla cakes, crumbly shortbread, and stiff meringues.

"One each," Kusanagi said to them. Then to the barista, a dull, "One black coffee."

Ryouken pulled a face, and next to him, Yuusaku pressed his lips together.

"I'm never going to drink coffee," Ryouken said.

"Me neither," Yuusaku said.

"Oh you might." Kusanagi knelt down, smothering a chuckle into his fist. "When you're an adult, then you might see the appeal to it. Or the the godsend caffeine brings you when you're working through the night. Now." Kusanagi tapped the glass. "Which ones?"

They left the shop with treats in little paper bags. Ryouken's fingers were sticky with jam and coulis from a berry-bursting tart, and Yuusaku munched away on finger-slices of shortbread. They headed back out to the van and back onto the road, and only when they were far enough away, past the congested city traffic and the rumbling noises, did Ryouken realise that, not once, did his mind wander to anything but being out with Yuusaku and Kusanagi. Not once did he check behind a corner or think about whether someone was coming for him. Not once did he remember anything but the fun times.

Yuusaku brushed crumbs from his lips and smiled down at the paper bag in his lap.

_ He probably didn't even think about those bad times either. _

* * *

Two days later, Ryouken was still bouncing on his heels. Jin was picking him up in the morning from Kusanagi's hot dog truck, and together they were taking the train to the university. He couldn't sit still on the front seats, or even  _ stand still  _ in the truck. His uniform hindered some movement, and his new, shiny, black shoes made a raucous clickety-clack sound on the laminate flooring, but it didn't faze him.

Today, he was going to school.

To uni.

He was going to leave the truck.

When the door opened, he spun round. Jin wasn't dressed in any uniform; he looked like the same old, sweater-and-jeans-wearing-Jin they saw of him every day. The only new feature was his black backpack round his shoulders and the single textbook under his arm.

"Ready to go?" Jin asked.

Kusanagi appeared from the back of the van, wiping tomato juice and water onto his apron. "You ready?"

"This will be a fun day for us, right, Ryouken?"

"Right."

"Grab your stuff and let's go then."

He already had his backpack and shoes on. Quickly, he held out his hand for Yuusaku. "See you after school."

"See you," Yuusaku said, high-fiving him back.

"Have fun," Kusanagi said.

Ryouken slipped out the door with Jin. The door closed. He let out the thick breath he'd been holding in. He was outside. The sun had yet to rise, and a thin layer of frost covered the ground. Kusanagi kept saying that it would snow, but above his head, he only saw dark sky and, on the horizon, the approaching dawn. Still, he snuggled deeper into his jacket and scarf, and rubbed his mittened hands together.

Jin's warm smile seemed to glow with sunlight, and yet there were no natural lights, just the yellowed lamp posts.

They headed through the plaza and back towards the train station. He kept his eyes peeled for anyone staring at his white hair; even on the shopping day, Kusanagi had made them both wear hats. But he hadn't said anything this morning, and so Ryouken forced his chin up and his gaze steady, and walked alongside Jin as if they were friends.

For the early hour, the city was awake. People bustled in thick peacoats, necks swathed in wool scarves and hats donned. A perpetual sleepiness hung over everyone's heads, and he felt like the only one awake as he skipped down the sidewalk. Most shops were still closed, but a rich smell wafted from breakfast shops selling pastries and toast slices, and even stronger was the aroma of coffee beans. The train station was even more crowded, and noisier as everyone's voices bounced off the concrete walls. The lights were painfully bright and he kept his gaze towards the floor, so that Jin could lead him onto the crowded train. He didn't look up again until they were back out of the train and standing on a noisier, albeit nicer-looking, platform.

"My school's just down this way," Jin said, taking him along down quaint side streets into what felt like a suburb, until they popped out of the street and saw something massive.

As big as a shopping mall, he would now say. The university towered over the little houses even though, in places, it was made up of buildings all clustered together like its own town. There were clock towers and big, glassy buildings; trees, parks, and natural life sprouting from every corner and patch of land; and people, as many as he saw earlier that day, heading in and out of buildings and lying on the lawn.

"Where's your classroom?" Ryouken asked.

"The one towards the back." Jin led him past many sky-scraping buildings and to a large, office-like edifice with a lobby and a reception desk and hallways and stairs and almost too much for him to take in all at once. People gave him a glance or two, but no one stopped them until they were down a long hallway. Someone waved and called out to Jin, and they slowed to a stop just before one of the classrooms.

"Your kid?"

"A friend's. He's coming to study today. Say hello, Satoru."

A pseudonym. He blinked and straightened up. "Hello, sir." He could play the part well.

The classmate dipped his head and kept on talking with Jin. Ryouken held onto Jin's other hand and peered into the classroom. There were already students at their desks, and the seats rose up like in an auditorium. Several heads turned towards him, but he stood still. If he acted suspicious, he'd only make them wonder.

Jin gave his hand a slight squeeze and led him towards the back of the classroom. They took their seats, attached to the little desks that were hardly wide enough for a single book to sit upon. Ryouken folded his legs under him so he could see up over the table, and from the top of the class, he could see the board and the little strip of a stage that must have been where the teacher stood to give his lecture. Bits and pieces of Jin's explanation of university were beginning to make sense.

"My name's Satoru?”

"Just while we're here." Jin flipped open his notebook and wrote on the top of his page: 了. "That means 'Satoru' too, and you know how to write that kanji?"

"It's in my name," he whispered. Then he copied the character next to Jin's, holding the pencil as straight as he could, remembering the correct stroke order.

At the front of the class, the door swung open and the teacher entered; he knew because the entire class fell quieter than a cemetery and the closing door was the loudest noise. Everyone had taken their seats and their books were laid out on their desks. Ryouken held his breath, waiting for what could happen next.

Then the teacher spoke, or rather taught. He had neither a loud nor quiet voice, but it carried up to the top of the room. He hardly sounded like he was speaking Japanese, but rather some foreign Asian language. He named off words like "hippocampus" and "cerebral" that wouldn't stick in Ryouken's mind even when Jin wrote them on his notebook, and sometimes Ryouken didn't even know what was a word and what belonged to another part of the sentence. It sounded a lot less like language and a lot more like gibberish. Fortunately, the teacher wrote on the board. He projected images onto a screen with several fancy projectors, and using holographic technology, displayed a brain that they could cut into pieces and locate various parts. He didn't know the names of them, but when the teacher lit up a piece in the middle of the brain—little strands that didn't even look like they should be anything—and called them "the hippocampus," Ryouken recognised that word from before.

_ The hippocampus: where new memories are stored, _ he wrote it in the notebook.

For the rest of the class, the teacher taught them about the hippocampus: where it was and how it worked, and then about how important it was. Jin listened the entire time, and Ryouken tried to too, but the more technical the lecture became, the more he became interested in drawing brains on his paper and wondering just how he could tell Kusanagi and Yuusaku about any of this. Would  _ Kusanagi  _ even know what a hippocampus was?

By the end of the class, his head was spinning and his notebook was full of kanji and their definitions; brains; and little snippets of the lecture he tried to write with his limited vocabulary and even more limited written knowledge.

Jin slipped his books back into his backpack. "What did you think?"

He blinked dazedly.

"I've been going to school for a long time, you see," Jin said, "but I thought maybe you might just like the experience. You look smart, by the way."

He plucked at his crisp school uniform. "Do you always learn about brains?"

"Sometimes. I learn about how it works, but it's theory before practice here—or at least, some theory, then applied theory, then praxis, then—" A laugh burst from his lips, smothered hastily behind his sleeve. "I''ll tell you on the way home. You're probably exhausted."

As he tried to say no, he felt his head spin and his tongue slip along his teeth. He hadn't run a mile, and yet he felt like he head and a bone-deep weariness had settled over his limbs. Was this was going to school felt like?

They headed back through the green campus and onto the train. It was less busy, and they found seats that gave them a view of the parks and buildings rolling by. Green and blue sprawled everywhere he could see, and where it couldn't, it was halted by thick, stone buildings and large highways and train tracks. He'd never seen so much of the world, not even when Father had taken him out. They'd always stayed home; he'd only ever seen the sea, blue and sparkling and full of stars.

"Can we go to the beach?"

Jin followed his gaze to the window.

"To the beach," Ryouken tried again. "As one last trip."

"Another time," Jin said. "I have class after this, and when we get back, Kusanagi will still be working."

He tried not to let out a sigh, but it still came.

"Did you want to come to class again?" Jin asked him. "If that was fun for you, we can do it again."

"Again?"

"Go to class, study." Jin leaned back on the seats. "If you want to go to school, I'll take you."

Jin's words fluttered through the train carriage.

"Someday, can I go to another school?"

"A school for boys your age?"

He kicked his shoes back and forth, toyed with the bare patch of fabric where his school crest should have gone.

"A school Yuusaku can go to too.”

He could hear Jin's smile through his words. "Someday, but Kusanagi and I have to plan that first. But. Someday."


	12. TWELVE

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> all aboard the fluff train <3

Change had happened, Yuusaku realised one morning over toast and blueberries. Sure, there was change at the beginning: leaving the Bad Room and staying in the park, and later living in the hotdog van. But after that incident the days had begun to blur together, and it felt like a never-ending period of stillness. He felt like he couldn't piece the days together, and that while events certainly happened—going to the beach, going shopping, going to Jin's apartment—he lived through them with only mild realisation. In a way, he felt like he was living in a dream.

But since Roboppy was built and came to live with them, he could pinpoint events more clearly. Roboppy carried a calendar with her, a little paper booklet that Kusanagi had presented her one morning, and she often showed Yuusaku the days of the week. Thus, he could say that yes, on November 22 he baked scones with Kusanagi, and yes, on November 23 he went to see Dr. Jin.

And thus began the use of the calendar.

Ryouken loved it too. He wrote down in his delicate writing the days that he went to university with Jin, penned next to all the hours Kusanagi worked at the hotdog truck. Yuusaku's appointments with Jin went on the calendar too, and when he stood back and counted the days, he noticed that he didn't see Jin every day, but twice every  _ week.  _ The calendar helped him spot those dates. It told him when something happened every day or when something happened every couple days.

The calendar wasn't the only new thing in the hotdog truck. Down the corridor, he could see one of the wooden legs of the new bed Kusanagi had purchased for them. Only in storybooks had Yuusaku seen a bunk bed, and he thought it looked even grander in person. It was almost as tall as Kusanagi, and looked like two bed had had their legs glued together. The beds were the same shape and size, but there were guardrails over the top bunk to keep the sleeper from rolling out. That was Ryouken's bunk, although he didn't sleep in it. He slept in the bottom bunk with Yuusaku, and he never woke up until Kusanagi shook him awake.

Speaking of which ...

Yuusaku snickered into his toast as Kusanagi headed down the corridor. He leaned over the bed and gave the blankets a shake and a tug. A tired mumble sounded from beneath the covers.

"Ryouken, come eat breakfast. You slept through cooking." A pause. "Have you been staying up reading?"

Yuusaku quickly returned to eating breakfast else Kusanagi ask him the same question. Ryouken had stayed up reading, blankets over his head and using a dim light to see the pages. Kusanagi always went to bed well after them, for he stayed up hours later on the computer, but Ryouken had stayed up late too and only put the book and light away when he heard Kusanagi's footsteps.

Yuusaku stifled a yawn behind his sleeve.

"Are you tired?" Roboppy asked.

"N-no," he said, taking another bite of toast. He  _ definitely  _ hadn't stayed up with Ryouken too, listening to him mumble the words on the page and following as Ryouken's finger traced the characters.

Roboppy blinked at him. "You have an appointment today."

Hotpot Day. Jin had asked him at the last visit what he wanted to cook, and so this appointment they'd be in the kitchen. He'd already cooked with Kusanagi: preparing the day's ingredients and reheating the chili was an important part of his work in the hotdog truck, and a daily task he looked forward to each morning. But cooking with Jin wasn't quite as exciting. When he went to Jin's apartment, he read books. That seemed like enough. Yet Jin wanted to cook from the recipe books, and a worried pain in his stomach told Yuusaku that this wouldn't be like cooking with Kusanagi.

Kusanagi returned from the back room with Ryouken in tow. Deep bags hung from Ryouken's eyes and he slouched in front of the table and rubbed them with the heels of his palms.

"I can't imagine why you're so sleepy," Kusanagi said, returning with a plate of fruit and toast, and a pot of yogurt that Ryouken happily picked up first.

"I went to bed." Ryouken kept his eyes on the table as he ate.

Kusanagi chuckled and returned to the counter.

Yuusaku scooched forward in his seat to gather Ryouken's attention. He pointed to Roboppy, holding the calendar in one claw, and said, "It's Hotpot Day."

Ryouken peered over the top of his yogurt cup, spoon halfway out of his mouth. With his hair mussed all around his face, he looked younger, and Yuusaku didn't feel like he was staring back at his wise friend.

"But it says there, 'Appointment with Dr. Jin.'"

Yuusaku nodded earnestly. "We're cooking today too."

"Oh ... But Dr. Jin's a doctor, not a chef. Right?" He glanced over his shoulder at Kusanagi, scrubbing at the grill with a large, wiry brush. Yuusaku had tried to scrub the grill once, but the black tar had been too difficult to scrape off, and so he let Kusanagi do the cleaning.

"You don't have to be a chef to cook," Kusanagi said.

Ryouken tilted his head to the side. "Are you a chef then?"

Kusanagi's long-suffering sigh echoed through the entire van. "If I'm running as successful of a business as this, then I must be a chef. Correct?"

Yuusaku nodded his head up and down, feeling a smile tug at his lips. "Correct."

Ryouken twirled his spoon in his yogurt, not quite as impressed, but he let it slide and continued to eat his breakfast. By the time he was done, Kusanagi had finished scrubbing the grill and setting out the day's ingredients, and the van looked much more like the hotdog food truck it was designed to be, rather than the ramshackle metal-hunk on wheels that functioned as much more than a food truck. Kusanagi had opened up the windows and set out the metal chairs and bright umbrellas for the tables.

Meanwhile, Yuusaku hurried to get ready for the day. Jin would appear in his silver car to pick him up.

Sure enough, when he gazed out the window, Jin's car was parked on the boardwalk, and Jin himself was walking through the plaza. He stood out from all the businessmen and students in their prim and proper office wear, and when Yuusaku climbed out of the van, he felt like he stood out too much too. He tugged at his thick, brown jacket and his black toque. Kusanagi said there was no reason for him to worry about his noticeable hair, but he preferred to keep it on when he left—and to stay warm else he get sick again.

Jin waved to him. "All ready, I see? Good, good."

Yuusaku ducked his head down to his chin. He reached up to take Roboppy, who glided down the little ramp next to the truck steps. Yuusaku kept tight hold of her as he said goodbye to Kusanagi, and then took her across the plaza and back towards the car.

Jin's car was small, or maybe he was simply used to large, bulky vehicles like the hotdog truck. It had front and back seats, and Jin had him sit in on a booster seat in the back.

"Won't someone see me?" Yuusaku asked.

Jin smiled. "We'll be going down the road so quickly that no one will spot you. You could even take your toque off, if you'd like."

He pressed it tightly to his head.

Jin merely shrugged and continued to buckle him up. When he was done, he slipped into the front seat and started the car. Yuusaku waited for the fierce thrum of the engine, but Jin's car only made a soft hum beneath his feet. From his height in the seat, he could see clearly out the window, and spot Kusanagi and Ryouken finishing up the last minute touches on the shop. Ryouken waved to him, smile as bright as his hair, and Yuusaku waved back.

Next to him, Roboppy waved too. She was buckled up with just the belt, and the way it sat around her round body made it seem like seat belts weren't made for robots. Nonetheless, she sat as still as a statue and kept her head forward as Jin drove the car down the boulevard and into town.

"Do you remember what today is?" Jin asked him, grinning ear to ear as if they were both in on a trade secret.

Yuusaku couldn't fight back his own smile, as much as his stomach churned. "Hotpot Day."

"Correct. I've got leeks, carrots, potatoes, maybe even some daikon—I can't remember everything I picked, gosh, even though it's only been a day or two." Jin smiled. "Like any of those?"

Yuusaku grinned down at his hands. The broth would be the best part: rich and creamy and oh-so-warm in his belly.

"Do you remember what recipe book it was in?" Jin asked.

"The little one." He twisted his fingers into the shape of the book, no larger than a sticky pad that Kusanagi kept around for making quick notes. "Do you still have it?"

Jin nodded. "In the house, and hopefully still on the counter with all those other ones. To be honest, Yuusaku, I forgot to check the recipe before I went shopping—I've made hotpot plenty of times before with my brother, but never from any recipe. So this will be a new experience for me too."

The car turned round the corner and the sights became a bit more familiar. When Kusanagi drove, they always sat under the glove box, and so he never saw the streets and buildings until they pulled into the parking lot outside the apartment complex. But now he could see Jin's building, and more importantly, what was around it. He lived somewhere near other apartment buildings. Distantly, he smelt star anise and ginger that reminded him of tasty Chinese food, and he searched for the shop on the bottom row of businesses on the block.

Jin pulled the car into one of the side streets, and around the bend the large apartment complex came into view.

Yuusaku turned to Roboppy. "Where is this?"

"Hannoki Place."

"The address?"

Roboppy named off a series of letters and numbers, most going over his head as if she were speaking another language. Yuusaku turned back to the window. Hannoki. Jin's building was called Hannoki, after the alder trees in the front yard with their fuzzy catkins and small, spade-shaped leaves. He'd seen the tree from the window, but up close it looked much larger and greener.

The car stopped in one of the parking spots by the front. Jin climbed out first, then helped him slip off the buckles and undo the straps holding Roboppy in like she was precious cargo. Without saying goodbye to Kusanagi in the parking lot, the trip up to the building felt a bit uncomfortable, and he glanced over his shoulders, waiting for Kusanagi to say goodbye or for Ryouken to tell him he'd see him soon.

Yet up in Jin's apartment came familiarity. He toed off his shoes in the entryway and wandered down the hallway into the main living room. There were cookbooks on the counter and washed vegetables laid out on the cutting boards. A small, plastic stool had been brought up to the counter, and Yuusaku climbed up so he could clearly see what Jin had bought. There were thick potatoes and onions; brightly-coloured peppers; and bunches of leeks with stems as thick as his wrists. The stock had already been prepared and sat off the hobs in a large pot.

Jin rolled up his sleeves as he approached the counter. "All right, let's see what the recipe says. What’s the first step, Yuusaku?"

He held the book up for Roboppy to read, and she read aloud the first step: chop vegetables. Jin nodded and passed him a knife. It was larger than the little paring knife Kusanagi gave him, and he held its sturdy weight for a moment before cutting up the potatoes. At times they rolled off the cutting board and none of his pieces were cut in equal shapes, but Jin cut along with him, and he cut with the same, jerky movements.

"You're ... not a chef." He sounded out the words, and only after did his ears turn red as he realised what he'd said.

Jin laughed aloud. "Did my brother tell you that?"

"Ryouken sometimes says he's not a chef either."

Jin only laughed harder, and tears sprung in the corners of his eyes. "Well my brother's a chef," he said once he'd sobered. "He's the best hotdog cook around."

Yuusaku could believe him; he could still remember the taste of the first hotdog he'd had outside of the truck, on that dark, cold night when they'd run away. He hadn't even eaten the hotdog, just the soft bun, but the memory stood out clearly from all his earlier hazy thoughts.

"I like his cooking," he said softly, tucking his chin down to his chest.

Jin sliced the leeks down the centre, peeling apart the softer interior.

"Do you cook with Kusanagi?"

"Every morning."  _ Chop!  _ went his knife on the block. He held the potato still with his fingers in a V-shape, and then brought the knife down to cut the wedge in half. In the photo, the vegetables were bite- or two-bite size.

"What do you cook?"

Yuusaku twisted his lips together. "Chili. And then I cut the vegetables like this, or I mix ..." He spun his arms around in a mixing formation, hoping it would jump-start his mind as to what he did stir. Sometimes it was a powdery mixture that reminded him of soup, and other times it was a strange, mayo-y coleslaw that they once ate on the beach.

"Have you ever cooked with anyone else, Yuusaku?"

"No." He coughed and tried again. "No, sir."

"Just Jin's fine—and I was merely curious. You must cook often with Kusanagi then—I see you slicing those potatoes quite expertly."

The praise warmed his heart a bit, but Yuusaku found his heart beginning to creep closer to his throat. He couldn't recall any previous memories of cooking, but he remembered the long nights without food. What the Bad Man gave him couldn't even be considered food next to what Kusanagi cooked up for him. It had tasted like sludge with the consistency of mud, and he twisted his lips together as a gag caught in his throat.

That place—that place was awful—

Gently, a soft  _ chop-chop  _ cut through his harried thoughts.

Jin's knife as it tapped on the wooden cutting board. Jin himself cut with ease, still making rough, imperfect cuts in the vegetables, but doing so with a steady motion that had Yuusaku drawing his attention to each cut.

His own knife lie on the board.

"You startled yourself for a bit," Jin said, "but here, let's try again."

Yuusaku swallowed thickly, and yet his voice still came out as a weak as a whisper. "Something bad happened ..."

"Did you remember something bad?" Jin asked. He still had his focus on the chopping, never ceasing, but Yuusaku felt like there  _ were  _ a pair of eyes on him. He struggled to keep the knife in his grasp and to chop the potato, but the knife felt heavier than lead and too dull to even cut through butter. His fingers felt sticky too, and clumsily he knocked the handle on the side of the board.

"Sorry—"

Jin kept on cutting.

"Sorry ..." Yuusaku took up the knife again and brought it down on the potato—a single, steady cut. Then again to make the wedge smaller.

"Sometimes, Yuusaku, do you remember something that makes you freeze up like that?"

"Mhm." He bit down on his lip and clenched his hand round the knife. Steady cuts. One, two.

"When that happens, you can take a deep breath. Like this." And Jin did—a breath so deep he had to raise his shoulders and puff out his chest, and when he let it out, his bangs blew across his forehead.

Yuusaku jumped when he realised he'd copied him. His breath had been shorter, and he had to take another gulp of air and focus on breathing so he didn't feel winded. He tried again, this time more gently and not quite so dramatic, and through it all he kept on cutting. One, two.

With the vegetables chopped, they moved on to the hotpot as per the cookbooks instructions that Roboppy read aloud. Jin brought the stock over to the hot and heated it on the plate, slowly but with enough temperature to bring it to a gentle boil. Yuusaku leaned over the counter and watched the spices roll across the surface. The colour reminded him of the oil Kusanagi sometimes greased his griddle in, or the oil that they once cooked French Fries in. It bubbled and popped, and when it had heated up, Jin motioned to the vegetables.

"You put them in."

Using a wooden spoon spoon, he set them into the bubbling broth. A hiss escaped the pot, and he jumped back in surprise.

"It's cooking," Jin reminded him gently.

Carefully, he set in the next ingredients. Each once popped and bubbled the moment the broth touched their sides, but they cooked slower than he thought, and he found himself watching them tumble in the stock as they slowly changed colour.

"Is this your first time having hotpot?" Jin asked him, leaning towards the steamy pot. His eyes closed, but even if Jin was in the other room or had his eyes closed, he always felt like he was present and alert.

Yuusaku nodded. "I didn't cook ... back there."

Jin remained quiet, his eyes closed and his head tilted just enough to the side that he didn't seem to have fallen asleep.

"I don't think Ryouken did either."

"Did you ever see Ryouken cook?" Jin asked.

"No ... but ..." But Ryouken didn't like that house either. He hated it there even when he tried to say that he liked it. Yuusaku remembered running away with Ryouken and how neither of them had ever looked back. And even when Ryouken did look back today, back to the house up on the hill, he always looked a bit sad. Not scared—nothing in that house could scare Ryouken like it did scare him, but the house on the hill didn't seem like a  _ home  _ to Ryouken.

"Did you ever see Ryouken in the house?"

"N-no ..." The pit in his stomach rose, and the steam began to blur around his eyes. Yuusaku scrubbed his hand under his nose and tried a deep breath.

"Did you ever seen Ryouken at all?"

On that first day, as sunny as a summer morning.

Behind him, he heard Roboppy say something like, "Yuusaku is sad," but Jin remained calm and quiet.

Yuusaku rubbed at his eyes and nose once more, took another deep breath, and then stirred the potatoes round the pot. He kept his eyes down and focused on the hotpot, on the vegetables rolling in the broth and the steam billowing from its top. The smell was heavenly, and he found himself taking more deep breaths even when he only planned on the one.

“Those memories make you quite sad, don’t they?”

He watched the potatoes roll in the broth, and yet from between his lips he whispered, “I don’t remember …”

“It’s hard to remember?”

“Mhm.” He only ever remembered parts of the time in the Bad Room, snippets of that awful place and the even more awful people down there. There was never a clear picture in his mind, and yet he always felt his heart clench and his stomach churn as if he was back there in that same terrible room.

Jin took another wooden spoon and popped the veggies back in the bubbling broth so that they would cook evenly throughout. “Would it be nice if you had newer, happier memories, Yuusaku? Memories like cooking with Kusanagi and Ryouken, and cooking with me.”

“What if I forget?” He pressed his lips together, then took a hasty gulp of air like Jin had taught him. The breaths were helping, and the steam rubbed his cheeks like a gentle hand. Sometimes Kusanagi’s sleeves would brush his cheeks, and Ryouken always slept next to him, cheek to cheek. This hand felt like that caress, and he leant closer.

“That is possible. Have you forgotten your time at Kusanagi’s?”

“Sometimes.” He poked the vegetables with one of chopsticks on the counter. The veg was softer now, as if it could melt in his mouth.

“And sometimes you remember?”

“Mhm.”

“How you do you remember, Yuusaku?”

He bent his fingers together into the shape of a square. “Roboppy has a calendar.” She had left it at the van, but at the mention of calendar, Roboppy trilled off the day’s agenda. Yuusaku smiled proudly of her. “Today is November 27. It’s Hotpot Day.”

Jin smiled back at him. “What a good way to remember what you do each day. That will help you remember these good memories. Now …” He turned back to the bubbling pot and turned off the element. Steam continued to roll from the dish. When Yuusaku glanced around, he spotted steam and condensation on the windows, and no matter where he stood in the room, it smelt of spiced broth. Jin brought the pot onto a little cloth potholder. “How shall we eat this?”

“It’s for … Kusanagi. And Ryouken.” 

Jin blinked. “Would you like any?”

None of those vegetables looked appealing to him—to a chef, perhaps, but he only ate fruit and bread and occasionally fried tofu bites that Kusanagi seasoned with a special glaze. Only the broth had the correct smell and colour and texture, but he had wanted to cook the hotpot and try the dish from the recipe, and the fun wasn’t in the final product but cooking in front of the stove.

Still, he wanted a bite.

Jin handed him a small, wooden spoon. Yuusaku dipped it into the broth and blew on it. The taste was mild, neither spicy nor sweet. Whenever Roboppy read recipes aloud, she named the flavour  _ umami.  _ This must have been umami: a savoury taste that had him slurping soup broth off the spoon and licking his lips of the residue. He took as many spoonfuls as he could, until the liquid sloshed around in his belly, and then set the spoon on the counter.

“How is it?” Jin asked him. 

“Umami.”

Jin’s laughter filled the room. “What a poetic word choice, Yuusaku. All right, let’s wrap the rest of this up for Kusanagi. He should be outside by now.”

They left the soup in the stone pot, and Jin carried it out of the apartment by its sturdy handles. Yuusaku trailed after him; he could smell the delicious soup wafting its aroma down the hallway, and even out the door where the outdoors smelt like petrol and pollen, he could still smell the heavenly broth. As they approached, Ryouken poked his head out the window and his eyes grew to the size of dinner platters.

“Hotpot!”

Kusanagi leant out the window too, rubbing his fuzzy chin. “That smells delicious, Yuusaku. The fruits of your hard labour.”

He shuffled his feet back and forth and climbed into the passenger seat. He moved to sit under the dashboard, but Ryouken exclaimed, “Up here with us.”

Ryouken was sitting on the seat with a seatbelt across his chest. There was a little booster seat next to him, tucked between him and Kusanagi, that looked like the same make and model as the one in Jin’s car.

Kusanagi grinned at him. “I don't even think someone could see us if they were wearing high-tech glasses."

With a smile, Yuusaku slipped into the seat. It was tight between Ryouken and Kusanagi, and a part of him wished he were at the window so he could see the streets roll by; but he could still look out the window, and Ryouken pointed out every feature of the streets and buildings. He couldn't have memorised them all on one trip to Jin's, and so Yuusaku assumed Ryouken had been down these roads when he was younger.

All through the drive, he could still smell the hotpot in the back sink, tucked away with its lid sealed on tight.

"Did you try any before you left?" Kusanagi asked.

"The broth." He could still taste it on his lips.

"What's in it?" Ryouken asked. He bounced up and down on his seat, and his nose twitched from side to side. He could probably smell it too, and Yuusaku couldn't wait for someone else to try his cooking.

He named off the ingredients, counting them on his fingers.

Ryouken's grin widened. "And what's it taste like?"

"Umami."

"What's that?"

"It's ... Roboppy, umami?"

Behind them, Roboppy gave a little trill and said: "Umami is a pleasant savory taste imparted by glutamate, a type of amino acid, and ribonucleotides, including inosinate and guanylate, which occur naturally in many foods including meat, fish, vegetables and dairy products."

Kusanagi snorted into a fist. "She's reading from some scientific article. Umami is savoury, guys—like good, full-bodied flavour."

"Is your cooking umami?"

"Of course it is."

Yuusaku grinned down at his hands. "Jin says ... you're a really good hotdog chef."

When he and Ryouken were complimented, they always stumbled a bit. But Kusanagi grinned ear to ear and told him, "And my little brother is the smartest university student I know, and soon to be a wonderful doctor."

"A brain doctor," Ryouken corrected, and then correcting himself, "A psychologist."

Kusanagi tapped his on the head with his fist. "You're learning lots in uni, I see. Just glad I don't have to pay those ridiculous tuition fees." Then he laughed, and Yuusaku found himself giggling too even when he didn't get what could possibly be funny. Kusanagi's joke were like that sometimes.

He mellowed as they pulled into the plaza, but when they stopped, Kusanagi headed outside of the truck with the hotpot held in thick oven mitts. He marched down the path with purpose, and only when he was halfway across the plaza did he turn around. "Come on, we're not eating this in the van. Down to the beach—it's freezing."

Ryouken grabbed Yuusaku's hand and pulled him forward. He knew the feeling of Ryouken's hand—small and soft—and he held tightly as they hurried across the plaza. At the edge, the wind was strongest, and he buried his nose into his collar and pulled his toque further over his ears. It  _ was  _ freezing, and yet the hotpot he had eaten earlier still warmed him like a fire inside his belly. They climbed down the wet, sea-sprayed steps and headed onto the beach. Rocks had frozen into the tightly-packed sand, and as far as he could see, the coastline was bereft of human life. The only sights out here were the thick, grey clouds and fog and the general muted tones, as if he were seeing the world in greyscale.

Ryouken bounced on his heels next to him.

"We're at the beach, Yuusaku," he said, and the wind swept his words away and carried them down the shore.

Kusanagi marched at the front and led them to one of the many huts, made of old driftwood that someone had carefully crafted. Yuusaku followed him inside, thankful when the wind stopped beating at his exposed cheeks. He shivered and rubbed his hands together, and then settled down where Kusanagi had spread out a thick picnic blanket.

"Ryouken, in."

He was still standing at the opening to the hut, watching the waves crash.

"I can't see the stars."

"Because it's midday in November. Come here."

He settled down next to Yuusaku, shivering so loudly his teeth chattered together.

Kusanagi set the pot between the three of them and opened the lid. The first whiff was light, as if the wind had taken all the flavour away, but then the rich aroma filled the little hut. Yuusaku held out his hands to warm them on the steam, and he sucked in as many deep breaths as he could. The vegetables bobbed on the top, but beneath them would be the rich broth. His stomach gurgled in anticipation.

"Shit, I forgot bowls."

Ryouken giggled into his sleeve.

Kusanagi passed them each a small, wooden spoon. "This will have to do then. Scoop up and enjoy."

He took the spoon but kept it tight in his grip. Kusanagi and Ryouken each had their own utensil brandished like a weapon. The churning in his belly had him second-guessing—would they like the broth? Had he and Jin done enough? Sure, it smelt good, but he'd only eaten the broth, not the veg.

Ryouken brought the spoon to his lips and sighed through the first bite. Then the second.

Yuusaku leaned closer.

The third bite. The fourth.

Kusanagi slurped the soup loudly from his fork. "Yuusaku, this is delicious. Just the food we need on a cold day."

Ryouken nodded eagerly, but he was too busy bringing the spoon from the bowl to his mouth in a never-ending loop. Yuusaku hadn't even realised he hadn't had a bite until Kusanagi reminded him, "If you don't eat quick enough, Ryouken's going to finish that off for you," and he hastily drunk the broth. Just as warm as when he'd tried it at Jin's place, and just as umami.

He only managed another couple of bites before the warm broth sat low in his stomach and he felt his eyes begin to roll closed. His jacket was only doing so much to protect him from the chilly wind, and so he shuffled towards the back of the hut, towards the warmth.

Kusanagi's jacket pressed against his cheek. He saw Kusanagi look up, and for a moment he had that look—that look he got whenever Yuusaku cried and Kusanagi stood there, not wanting to touch him or even look at him. Yuusaku felt himself begin to pull away—Kusanagi didn't want this—when, carefully, an arm settled next to him.

"You cold?"

He wiped his nose on his sleeve. "Bit."

"It'll be warmer in the truck, but here ... let's warm up a bit first."

He shuffled into Kusanagi's jacket, rubbing his cheeks over the fabric. His fingers clung to one of the sleeves, and he brought his legs up to his chest so that he was a small ball at Kusanagi's side. When Kusanagi took a deep breath like Jin, Yuusaku could feel his body rise and fall along with him.

One breath, then another.


	13. THIRTEEN

He was inside a very dark room.

Ryouken gazed around, looking for any sight with which to reacquaint himself. He knew this was a dream, or else he would have been back in the hotdog truck, but his dream was empty. Quiet. There was no wind or air, no temperature to make him sweat or shiver. His eyes were staring deep into nothingness, and he couldn't even tell if he was standing on solid ground or floating in the air. He tried to take a step forward, but found his body wouldn't move.

_ Hello,  _ he tried to say, but his mouth didn't move.

He sniffed the air, only to find  _ nothing  _ moved.

"Raise your arm."

He felt his insides jump at the sound of the screeching metallic voice. It was warbled and echoey, and altogether inhuman. But even odder was that his arm raised up towards what could only be the ceiling, fingers splayed wide. He tried to bring his arm back down, but it remained poised in the air like a flagpole.

"Raise your other arm."

_ Don't tell me what to do!  _ he wanted to scream at the warbling voice, but instead his other arm rose above his head. He should have felt embarrassed posed like a superhero figure, but dread filled his lungs. He couldn't move. Couldn't run away. Couldn't raise his voice or his fist to whatever was controlling him.

This was a dream. He knew it. Repeated it to himself a hundred times to ensure he had the truth clearly scraped in his mind.

"Take a step forward."

His left foot moved forward, landing on another empty patch. As soon as his toes connected with the ground, grass bloomed around him. He was standing in a patch of carnations growing all over the mountainside. The pollen tickled his nose and made his eyes itch, but without the use of his limbs, he couldn't rub his eyes or even scrunch up his face. He could feel the world though: the caress of the wind, the tickle of the grass and flowers on his bare feet. He stood in his button-down pyjamas like a child who had fallen away into a magical dream-land.

"Another step."

The voice continued to force him to walk, one step at a time, through the fields. The flowers changed from carnations to heather to tulips to tiger lilies in the blink of an eye, so that the field was a never-ending disco of coloured flowers. There was no rhyme or reason to the change, as he tried to count the seconds between each new flower kind or colour. In fact, there was no rhyme or reason as to why he was here. He'd never visited flower gardens with his father or with Yuusaku and Kusanagi. He'd never dreamt of such a place in his life.

_ What a silly dream,  _ he tried to tell himself.

"Another step."

The field disappeared.

He stood on the edge of a cliff, toes curled over the edge. He couldn't gaze down, but through the bottom of his blurry vision he could see that the drop was endlessly long. A swallow grew in his throat, but still he could not move or blink or breathe.

And yet the feeling of hyperventilation was in his chest, the rattle of his lungs and the tightness of his chest. He felt sweat pouring over his body and his heart hammering straight through his ribs. Every muscle in his body ached. Every part of him said to turn around and move back.

"Look down."

Ryouken tried to squeeze his eyes closed, but he saw the drop. A dark hole was gazing back at him. No flowers. No morning breeze.

_ This is a dream. _

He tried to pinch himself awake. Tried to tell himself nothing was happening. Nothing  _ could  _ happen. This was all a dream and he was going to wake up next to Yuusaku and to the delicious smell of buttered toast and grilled tofu and chili roasting on the back pots—

"Another step."

He toppled over the edge headfirst.

The world blurred, but rather than the sight of the bedroom, he saw the black hole open into a great, awful maw.

Ryouken screamed, even though no sound could escape his lips. He passed a rope, a ladder, a hand reaching out to take him back up to the top. Tears filled his eyes as he tumbled further and further down, arms out in front of him, joints stiff and awkward as if he were made of machine parts.

_ Let me go!  _ he screamed.  _ Let me go, let me free, this is a dream, a  _ dream _ , wake up— _

The maw opened wide, filled with ivory-white teeth. Two small, red eyes stared back at him.

_ Wake up! _

A pair of strong arms wrapped around him, and Ryouken latched tightly onto them. His fingers found skin, and he heard someone gasp and try to pull him away. Ryouken clung tighter, screaming as loudly as he could any words that came to his mouth.

Then Kusanagi pulled him in tight bear-hug so strong that it held him in place. Ryouken sobbed into his chest. His arms were free—not free to move, for Kusanagi held him so tightly there wasn't even room for air between them, but free to have the option to move, no longer bound by the dream. He was awake. He could breathe and scream and cry all in one go, and his lungs hastily filled with air. One of Kusanagi's hand rubbed up and down his back, moving with the ragged falls of his breaths.

"It was a dream. A dream, Ryouken. You're awake now. It's all right."

He pushed his face further into Kusanagi's collar. The dark seemed much gentler now, and yet when his eyes snapped closed he remembered falling and the voice taunting him.

Kusanagi bounced him up and down. "Shh, shh. You woke up. It was just a bad dream.”

Just a bad dream. He wanted to say it too, and believe the words out of his mouth. But he only cried harder.

Eventually, his breaths evened and his head lifted from Kusanagi's pillowy shoulder. He sniffled and rubbed at his face. Kusanagi passed him one of the tissues from the box on the bedside table, and he crinkled it between his wet hands. They were on the bed, side by side; Yuusaku was standing in the hallway, eyes as wide and glowing as an owl's. One of his little hands clung to Roboppy, who was gently telling him, "Ryouken is sad," in her same, lilting voice.

She sounded nothing like the deconstructed voice in the dream, but he pressed his hands over his ears and shut his eyes.

"Make it stop."

Kusanagi drew him closer, dabbing away the tears with his own handkerchief. "It was just a bad dream, Ryouken. You're awake now, and everything is all right."

"M-make ... Roboppy stop."

Kusanagi rubbed his back again.

His lungs burned with each breath, and he coughed and gazed around the room. It must have been early morning, but he could see the bags under Kusanagi's eyes. They were as purple as Yuusaku's when he refused to go to sleep, and Ryouken wondered if his own eyes were puffy too.

Kusanagi's strong hands wrapped around him and lifted him from the bed. "Come here, let's get you something to drink."

"Is ... is it morning?" Yuusaku asked, stifling a yawn into his hand.

"Close enough," Kusanagi said. He carried Ryouken into the kitchen and set him down on the counter. While Ryouken rubbed at his running eyes and nose, Kusanagi set about heating up cups of milk and depositing chocolate powder into them.

Yuusaku climbed up onto the counter with him. He leaned close, and in a whisper of a voice, asked him, "Did you have a bad dream?"

Ryouken shook his head. It wasn't just bad—it was awful. A nightmare of the worst kind.

Kusanagi stirred the chocolate powder into each of the cups, turning the milk from frothy white into a rich brown. He dropped marshmallows into each of the cups and slid them along the counter for Yuusaku and Ryouken.

"Do you want to talk about your dream?"

Ryouken shook his head. He sipped at the hot chocolate, waiting for it to grow sticky and coagulated in his belly. Instead, the drink warmed him from the inside out. He wrapped his hands around the ceramic sides to suck up all the moisture, and brought his face close to the rim to feel the steam touch his cheeks.

Kusanagi peered at him over the rim of his cup. "Do you want to go back to sleep?"

A shake of his head.

"That's fine. You have school with Dr. Jin today, but if you're too tired—"

"N-no." He shook his head vehemently, and then said, "I want to go."

"Well then ..." Kusanagi hid a yawn in his fist and glanced at the clock on the wall. The bright, red numbers painted the walls with an ochre light. 0 _ 4:52.  _ "It's a bit too early for any of that."

"Can we cook?" Yuusaku asked.

Kusanagi set a hand on his shoulder. "Ryouken?"

Normally, he would still be asleep while Kusanagi and Yuusaku prepared the day's ingredients. But the last place he wanted to be was back in the bedroom, so he nodded his head.

It had been ages since he last cooked with Yuusaku and Kusanagi. They had their own routine—a dance of cutlery and whisks, chopping and slicing and dicing, and they made the morning food prep look effortless. Kusanagi cut with the tempo of a drummer, and Yuusaku sliced even strips of peppers and juicy rounds of tomatoes. They carried the bags of buns from the back of the van to the front, and cooked chili in a large vat. Though the van was tiny, neither Kusanagi nor Yuusaku bumped into each other. Ryouken felt like he was tumbling into everything. His clumsy fingers refused to hold the knife correctly, and when he tried to move, he felt like a puppet with twisted strings. His mind returned to the horrible feeling of uselessness, and tears pricked his eyes. He only managed to hold them back by biting his lip raw and focusing on the tasks at hand.

Cut.

Chop.

Whisk.

If Yuusaku could do it, so could he. Yuusaku had nightmares every night too, and yet he still got up for the day and prepared the ingredients for the hotdog van. He didn't let the day bowl him over and hold him prisoner, and Ryouken wouldn't let the same thing happen to him.

By the time they finished chopping, the sun was just peeking over the bottom of the window. Ryouken hurried into the bedroom to grab his own uniform. The fabric was stiff and starchy, and he had to work to fasten the buttons on his dress shirt. On the bed, Yuusaku sat and watched him with his head in his hands.

"Does anyone else wear a uniform?" he asked.

Ryouken slipped his arms through the blazer’s holes and pulled it over his head. "Just me."

Yuusaku toyed with the buttons on his pyjamas. "Are there any other kids at school?"

"Just me," Ryouken said again. He pushed his feet into his loafers, and bounced up and down on his heels to settle his toes in the black leather soles. "But that's all right—no other eight years old go to university."

Yuusaku crawled across the bed and reached under the covers. He returned with Jin's flimsy workbook he had leant him. The notes inside were meticulously written and accompanied by detailed drawings and diagrams. It probably all made sense to Jin, but last night when Ryouken and Yuusaku had read the workbook together, most of the words sounded like garbled gibberish.

"I wonder if Roboppy could read it," Yuusaku said, tracing the letters on the front page.

Ryouken sniffed. "She doesn't know everything. She's just a robot."

Yuusaku pressed his lips together. "But Kusanagi could download that information, I think ..." He held the book out to Roboppy and flipped to one of the pages of Jin's diagrams. "Roboppy—"

"Ryouken, Jin's here!" Kusanagi called from the front of the van.

Ryouken snatched up the workbook with an apologetic glance. "I'll learn lots today," he said, "so we can read it again tonight."

"But ... won't you be sleepy?" Yuusaku's own dull eyes blinked tiredly, and at the mention of sleepiness, he started to yawn.

Ryouken slipped the book into his backpack and hoisted the straps over his shoulders. "Not a bit." He held out his hand, spreading his fingers wide. Yuusaku's own hand connected with his, fingers splayed but not stretched out as far, and the little digits only reaching to the third groove on his fingers.

A smile flickered across Yuusaku's face. "See you, Ryouken."

He pressed his hand into Yuusaku's. "See you later."

He broke apart when he heard the van door open. Jin's head peeked through the doorway. A pair of thin glasses perched on the bridge of his nose, and a long, black scarf covered the entire lower half of his face. He pushed down the fabric and smiled.

"Morning."

At the counter, Kusanagi stopped separating cutlery into their designated compartments and wiped his hands on his apron. "It's been morning for a  _ long  _ while here. We've been up since half-five."

The words clove through his chest and he winced. But Kusanagi didn't mention the nightmare as he slipped on his heavier jacket and toque, and wound his own scarf round his neck. Jin waited in the doorway for him, and on his head, Ryouken could see the softest, white dust. It looked like someone had coated him in powdered sugar.

His eyes widened at the realisation. "Snow!"

As he scurried to the door, he nearly slipped on the puddle Jin's wet clothing had made. Outside was a veritable winter wonderland. Snow fell from the sky in thick flakes, coating any surface in a layer as thick as fondant. Rolling snow banks bordered the thin paths created for pedestrians, but the paths, as frequented as they were, had started to disappear under the heavy snowfall. When Ryouken held his hand out, snow frosted over his palm. It was falling even quicker than he could imagine. His feet moved on their own accord until he was standing deep in the snow. It fell into his cupped hands, and onto his head and shoulders too. When he tilted his head back, flakes landed on his nose and he scrunched his face at the cold pinpricks.

"Ryouken." Jin called his name and beckoned him towards the narrow path out of the plaza. "Come along, the train will be very busy today, and possibly delayed."

He hurried along after Jin, keeping one or two paces behind him. Jin never drove to school like he drove him and Yuusaku back to the apartment, but today Ryouken was thankful for the walk to the train station. He kept his hands out to catch the snow, and from time to time tipped his head back to feel the tingly prickles on his cheeks. Jin kept his head down and his shoulders hunched up to his ears.

"Do you like the snow?" Ryouken asked. He quickened his pace to walk alongside Jin.

Jin gave a brusque shiver beneath his thick jacket. With only his eyes peering out from the scarf, he looked mummified. "I prefer the summer weather."

He had to admit, summers on the beach were better than winters on the beach, and Ryouken couldn't wait for Kusanagi to take them somewhere where they could actually swim in the water.

Ryouken started to speak up again, but as they turned the corner into the train station, his words were swallowed up by the droning kerfuffle. Everyone and their friend was at the train station today, and though the trains weren't delayed—they never were—Ryouken felt like they waited ages longer on the platform. He kicked the snow off the bottoms of his boots and shook the white coating from his toque and jacket. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Jin watching him, but he didn't say anything while they waited.

When they boarded, Jin guided him to one of the seats and stood in front of him to let another passenger take the chair.

"You look sleepy, Ryouken."

He shook his head, but at that same moment, he let out a wide yawn.

"What kept you up this morning?"

He folded his hands in his lap, rubbing off the wetness clinging to the cotton fibres. "I was reading last night and I got carried away."

Jin seemed to believe the half-lie, and he eased off as the train doors open and shut. When the train carried on, Jin spoke up again. "What were you reading?"

"Your workbook." A kick of his legs. Ryouken refused to meet his nonchalant gaze else he be blown away like a flimsy kite.

Jin clicked his tongue together. He had to hold onto the handrails above him to keep him from tipping over, and Ryouken suspected he needed his concentration far more for his balance than for interrogating. "I'm glad you're enjoying the books. Which parts have you been reading?"

A thick swallow. "The parts with the brain. And the diagrams with the brain too." Without an adult to help them, he and Yuusaku hadn't made much headway reading the workbook when half of the kanji were foreign to them, and when they weren't, they were parts of words that Ryouken still hadn't learnt. Without the furigana, he was helplessly reading a book of nonsense, and the diagrams alone only offered so much information.

Jin kept on nodding and humming like he did when the conversation was light and airy.

"Can I read your textbook too?" Ryouken asked.

Jin nearly laughed. "Have you finished the workbook already?"

Ryouken bowed his shoulders together, and his damp scarf pressed against his neck. "No, but I want to show Yuusaku just what I'm learning in class."

Turning around, Jin pulled his textbook from his satchel. Unlike the workbook, it was large and heavy like a brick, and weighed as much as one too. The thick spine held together glossy pages filled with diagrams and text, and the detail made Jin's handwritten workbooks look like a child's craft project. Ryouken would never say the words aloud, but the textbook was on another level. It made sense considering that Jin had once told him it had cost an arm and a leg to purchase it.

"If I don't need it for homework tonight, I'll lend it to you. Deal?"

"Deal."

He slipped the book back inside the satchel. At the next stop, Ryouken followed Jin out onto the snowy streets. There must have been another inch of snow on the ground, and here where the buildings were tightly packed and the city traffic even more frequent, the world felt full to the brim. He had to lift his legs up and over the snowy banks and keep his hands out on either side of him to maintain his balance. By the time he made it indoors, he was panting and sweating through his layers.

Fortunately, the building was warm and he could peel his clothing away. The classroom was even warmer; at the back of the room sat three small space-heaters lined up like soldiers prepared to do their duty. Ryouken warmed his hands in front of them, watching the ice melt away from his fingertips.

Despite his enthusiasm about school and the snowy weather, when he sat down for class, he began to feel sleepy. It started small, with his posture slackening and his fingers becoming heavy round his pencil. No matter how tightly he pressed his lips together he couldn't stop yawning, and he didn't miss Jin's constant glances. He lay his head down on the desk and turned away from Jin, so that when he did yawn, he couldn’t could see; to anyone else, Ryouken looked like a diligent student with his nose pressed to his paper. However, this also posed a problem: he was practically sleeping on the desk, and with his head bowed, his eyes started to roll closed. He forced them to open, yet as soon as he wrote, his eyes would slip closed again.

As class continued, the teacher's voice began to sound like a lullaby. The warm air from the back of the classroom brushed over the back of his neck and settled around him like a thick comforter. All he needed was a warm cup of milk and he'd be fast asleep.

He jammed his knuckles into his eyes.

Stay awake.

And he did.

When class ended, he lifted his head from his desk and glanced down at his paper. Where there should have been sloppy hiragana and kanji though, there was just a damp stain.

Ryouken ran his wrist over his lips.

Jin smiled softly at him, the sort of knowing gesture adults had when they wanted to prove they were right. "You  _ were  _ tired."

The only saving grace was that he hadn't had another nightmare. If he'd woken up screaming in the classroom, he wouldn't have dignity to return again.

"I don't know whether it would be wise for me to lend you my book. I wouldn't want to tire you out further."

Ryouken rubbed his face once more to ensure all the spit was off his lips and the goop out of his eyes, and then he huffed loudly. "I promise to go to bed tonight."

"If you promise," Jin said, and led him out the door.

They headed out through the snow once more, and on the train, Ryouken felt like he had run a marathon. Since it was midday and before the rush, there were plenty of empty seats to allow him and Jin to sit side by side. Once the train was rolling, Jin pulled out the textbook and began flipping through the pages. He stopped at a page Ryouken hadn't seen before that showed the brain sliced into two bits.

"This is what we learnt today," Jin said and tapped a finger to the glossy page. "The left and right hemispheres of the brain." Balancing the book on his lap, he made two fists and pressed them together. "Remember how the brain is the size of two fists. Well, each fist is about the size of a hemisphere."

Ryouken clenched his own hands into fists and drew them together. With the bumps of his knuckles and his veins as rivets over the tops of his hands, his fists resembled two parts of the brain.

Jin bent his hands down so that Ryouken could see the valley between them. "The two sides of the brain are identical and connected together, and need both sides of the brain to function correctly."

"Or else what?" he found himself saying in a breath of a voice.

"Or else something isn't working." Jin pressed his lips together and drew his eyebrows up over his head. He seemed to be searching for something, and after a moment, he glanced back down. "Say you want to lift your hand. If you can't lift your hand, something might be wrong in your brain, either on both sides or just one."

Ryouken glanced down at his own hand, remembering the loss of movement he'd had in the dream. Was that what had happened? Had someone hurt his brain and he could no longer move? But then he could move, only when the voice commanded him.

Ryouken pointed to the image of the brain. "Is that what we learnt today too?"

"Well, sort of." Again, Jin drew himself together like he was recalling a particular definition or description. Considering how, in other lectures where he didn't sleep through them, the teacher tended to talk for the entire lesson, Ryouken was surprised Jin could remember anything. "I'm studying psychology, so if there's something wrong with the makeup of the brain, it might be the wrong ... messages. Or signals. Things that stop the brain from working properly."

"Like what?"

Jin chewed on his bottom lip, much like Yuusaku did when he was worried about something. He had the same pinch in his forehead too, growing more pronounced the deeper his teeth pressed into his lip.

Ryouken clenched his hands together. Whatever lesson he'd slept through sounded important, so he made a mental note to read ahead in the book when they got home.

Jin cleared his throat with a soft cough to draw his attention back. "When your brain is sick, it might be because something's not right in one of the parts of the brain, or even between them."

Long ago, Kusanagi had told him Yuusaku was sick, and not just when he'd been vomiting and ran a high fever. That sounded like what Jin was talking about. But if Yuusaku was brain-sick, that meant there wasn't just something wrong with what happened to him, but something wrong with his brain. He pushed his fists closer together, imagining his own brain. Was it sick too? Did the messages jump from one side of his brain to the other, or did they get caught somewhere in the middle and give him horrible nightmares?

He had to know the answer.

"Can the brain get better?"

"Of course," Jin said. "It's very strong."

Like a candle in the dark, Jin's reassuring words chased away the worries in his brain. He rested back on the train seat and for the rest of the ride tried to picture just what was going on inside his brain. He recited the words Jin had told him so he could tell Yuusaku too.

When they got home, the hotdog truck was surrounded by snowy dunes. Kusanagi had paved out a path to get to the window, but there were no metal chairs and tables around the square. Most people were heading home quickly, holding their paper coffee cups between their hands and keeping their hoods pulled down low. There was no one at the window when they approached, and so the front door opened up for him and Kusanagi beckoned him inside. He motioned for Jin to follow, but Jin shook his head.

"I've got some work to catch up on, but I'll call tonight."

Kusanagi waved gooodbye to him. "All right, see you." He crouched down to Ryouken's height and flipped his hood off. Snow toppled onto the ground. Kusanagi brushed his shoulders clear of snow too, chuckling through his teeth. "We should go out and play in this weather. I may even close the shop early—it's been dead quiet here."

Ryouken pulled Jin's textbook, wrapped up in a plastic bag, closer to his chest. "I want to read."

Kusanagi's eyebrows rose into his curly hair. "Must be something awfully fascinating in there," he said. "What did you learn today?"

"About the brain," Ryouken said, sticking his chin out. He was all prepared to deliver his scholarly speech too when Yuusaku appeared around the corner, pulling Roboppy with him. His eyes fell on the bagged book and he hurried to Ryouken's side. Yuusaku's nimble fingers picked at the book's wrapping until he could see the front cover. He traced a single finger over the kanji.

"A psychology textbook," Ryouken said, puffing out his chest. He snatched up Yuusaku's hand and tugged him down the hallway. "Here, I'll show you."

As he marched down the hallway, Kusanagi called out, "Wet clothes off before you get on the bed."

He dropped the book down on the blankets for Yuusaku to peruse through, and while he flipped pages, Ryouken shimmied out of his wet uniform and into his spare dress pants and shirt. Dressed, he clambered onto the bed and pulled the book onto his lap. The section Jin had showed him was towards the back, and he flipped through the pages he'd just seen while on the train. They looked equally impressive, and Yuusaku pressed his nose close to the pictures.

"That's what a brain looks like," Ryouken explained. "It's the size of two fists put together, and both sides are identical."

Like him, Yuusaku made two fists and pressed them together. He examined the new shape he had made with his green eyes narrowed, and once satisfied, returned to staring at the book.

Ryouken pointed to the middle of the brain, and what looked like the spine connecting the two sections. "The brain has to send signals, or else it won't work and will get sick."

"Get sick?" Yuusaku put a hand to his own head. "How?"

Ryouken shrugged. "I don't know, maybe an accident."

Yuusaku pressed his lips together and turned to Roboppy. "How does a brain get sick?"

Roboppy blinked at him. Ryouken huffed and crossed his arms—Roboppy was just a walking dictionary, but she didn't have the answers to everything.

He bit back his words as she trilled off: "Did you mean: mental illness?"

Ryouken shook his head. "No. Sick."

Once more, Roboppy blinked her dotted eyes and tried again. "Did you mean: physical illness?"

Yuusaku reached for the book and pointed to a sentence. "What's that say?"

"The brain is divided into the right and left hemispheres, and connected by the corpus callosum."

Ryouken pulled the book closer to him and peered at the kanji. He couldn't even tell which characters made up the words hemisphere or corpus callosum, and since he'd fallen asleep, he couldn't remember much of the lesson. What Jin had taught him felt fuzzy in his mind, and he wracked his memories to recall what else he'd learnt on the train.

The thought popped into his head with a snap of his fingers. "How do you fix the brain?"

He hadn't meant to ask the question to anyone to particular—it had just sprung into his head—but Roboppy heard it loud and clear. "Did you mean: lobotomy?"

Yuusaku and Ryouken both peered down at the glossy pages. Ryouken hadn't ever heard that word before, and if he was looking for any kanji that might make it up, he didn't even know where to begin.

Yuusaku turned to Roboppy and pointed at the book, at the picture of the brain divided into two hemispheres. "What's a lobotomy?"

Ryouken nearly jumped through the roof as Roboppy's holographic display flickered onto the wall, projecting an image of a 3D brain. It looked roughly the same size as the brain Jin had made with his fists, only bumpier with grooves all along its sides. Then the brain disappeared into a person's head.

He blinked as a long, silver pole materialised next to the person.

Swallowed as the pole pointed straight at the person.

Screamed as the pole went through the person's eye.

Roboppy said something about the lobotomy, perhaps a definition of what it entailed, but Ryouken needed no explanation to see the pole speared through the holographic eye. Since the person's head was transparent, he could see the spear poking the brain too, scratching up and down at the ridges. That—that was how they fixed a sick brain—

Yuusaku screamed, pushing himself as far as he could be onto the bed.

"Stop, stop—"

Roboppy switched her screen off, and at once she was there, calling out, "Yuusaku is sad, Ryouken is sad," over the sound of their cries.

Ryouken choked when he realised he was screaming too. Crying. He had one hand over his eye, where the needle had pierced the hologram, as if he expected that same needle to pierce his own eye. Even though there was nothing touching him, he felt prickling pain along his own eyes. Were his fingers going into his skull? His vision started to grow blurry in tandem with his mounting panic. Somehow, he'd hurt himself—somehow, he'd given himself a lobotomy—

"Yuusaku, Ryouken—" He could hear Kusanagi somewhere, but through his failing vision, every shape was a hazy, muddy puzzle. He held his hands out, hoping that Kusanagi would take them, and was swept up into an embrace. A hand settled on the back of his head and nearby he heard Yuusaku crying too. Kusanagi's other shoulder kept bouncing into him, but Ryouken clung tightly like a chimp to its mother, refusing to even let his fingers disentangle from Kusanagi's shirt.

"Ryouken is sad, Yuusaku is sad—"

"Roboppy, silence!" Kusanagi sounded frightened. He hardly ever shouted, and when he did he swore at the computer or grill, but his voice kept pitching and cracking, and he stumbled over his words as he held Ryouken close. "Ryouken, whatever is the matter?" he kept saying. On the third time, Ryouken sniffled miserably.

"We—we need a l-lobotomy—" The rest of his words melted into frantic sobs. He'd never cried harder, not even on the first day he'd come. He kept blinking to restore his vision, but it only seemed to make his cheeks ache and his eyes water. Tears poured down his face and he fell back into Kusanagi's embrace.

"A—a lobotomy?"

Yuusaku's wails were the only answer.

Kusanagi shifted him closer, bouncing him up and down.

"No one's getting a lobotomy," he said. "Whatever did you see ..." Then Kusanagi's words faded. He didn't cry, but Ryouken felt Kusanagi stiffen and suck in a deep breath, much like he did when he discovered a terrible truth. Ryouken held his own breath too, not daring to lift his head. Kusanagi must have seen the textbook. Must have seen the lobotomy. Must have searched through Roboppy's files to learn just what she had searched.

"I d-don't want a l-lobotomy," Ryouken said, voice choked.

Kusanagi drew him closer. His nose pressed deep into Ryouken's collar, and his thick hair tickled Ryouken's cheek.

"No one is getting a lobotomy. I promise."

"But in that book ..."

"They don't do that anymore."

Ryouken sniffled. "But ... but they m-might ..."

Kusanagi shook his head, curly locks cleaning the tears from Ryouken's wet cheeks. "You read something scary, but that doesn't happen anymore." Gently, he eased him back, and Ryouken hung his head forward like a rag doll. Each breath came out as a wheezy pant, but he could see Yuusaku now, tucked against Kusanagi's side and clinging with a white-knuckled grip to a part of his shirt. He'd made the entire patch of fabric wet with his tears, and he didn't look up.

"Ryouken. Yuusaku."

Yuusaku pulled his knees up to his chest and buried his face in them.

Slowly, Ryouken lifted his head. The book had long since been closed, but he could still picture the pole spearing the brain. Yet he distantly realised his vision had returned, and that he could see Yuusaku on the bed and Kusanagi sitting next to him. Kusanagi's hand was still stroking his shoulder in a steady, up and down motion. Ryouken sucked in a deep breath, from the bottom of his toes, and met Kusanagi's eyes.

"There." Kusanagi patted his shoulder, and Ryouken felt another breath rise in his lungs, with an exhale so deep his entire body shook.

Kusanagi rubbed his hair. "There you go, you really frightened yourself there, you and Yuusaku both. I didn't realise Jin's textbooks would teach you something like that, or that Roboppy here would ..." He shook his head, bring his hand up to his forehead. "Guess safety search wasn't on."

The sweat and tears on his face were creating a damp layer on his skin, and he shivered and rubbed at his arms. For one terrible moment, he had felt himself falling back into another nightmare, and still the thoughts flashed in the backs of his eyes: sabres, eyes, falling, loss of control. His stomach spun round like a merry-go-round.

"That's ... what happens to a sick brain."

"What  _ did  _ happen," Kusanagi corrected. "Not anymore."

He lifted his head, letting the last of the tears drip down his cheeks. "But what if my brain is sick too?"

_ And what about Yuusaku? _

Kusanagi paled to the colour of milk. He went glassy-eyed, like he did when he was met with his own terrible truths, and Ryouken knew the look well: Jin never looked frightened by them; but Kusanagi, he got scared. Confused.

"Is my brain sick?" Ryouken asked, feeling another sob build in his chest.

Then: "No."

Clear.

Kusanagi took him by the shoulder, the contact drawing his attention up to the way Kusanagi looked like Jin, like a doctor. He had the same pinch of his lips and crease in his forehead, and the strength behind his eyes that made him seem wiser beyond his years.

"You aren't sick. At all. And neither is Yuusaku."

"B-but ... the nightmares."

"Everyone has nightmares."

He even sounded like Jin. To Ryouken, Kusanagi had always been their protector, but someone who wasn't a doctor. Someone who got sad or confused too. Yet the way he held himself together made Ryouken still his breathing, if only by a bit.

Kusanagi wrapped an arm around him, and another around Yuusaku. "Neither of you are sick, and neither of you are getting lobotomies. You are safe here, with me and Jin and Roboppy. You're all right."

Yuusaku's head gave a bit of a nod—the first sign of recognition that he was listening to Kusanagi. Ryouken peeked round Kusanagi to see if Yuusaku had stopped crying, and was surprised to find his eyes dry, albeit puffy, and only one of his little hands wrapped in Kusanagi's shirt.

Ryouken jumped as he felt Kusanagi shift. He wasn't ready to let go at all. But Kusanagi simply relaxed down on the bed, until he was nearly horizontal with his long legs stretched over the bed. Each of his arms was wrapped around their shoulders, and Ryouken found himself nestling closer. The fear of closing his eyes hung heavy in his mind, but he felt safer tucked against Kusanagi's side. His breathing was steady like sea waves, and his embrace was warm in the cold van.

But still, a thought prickled in his mind, and one that he couldn't wait until Yuusaku was gone for him to ask aloud.

"Do I have nightmares ... because my brain is sick?"

Kusanagi's didn't so much as blink when he asked. "Your brain is not sick."

"But then ..." He nibbled on his lip, tasting the words on the tip of his tongue. "Where do the nightmares come from?"

"They're just bad dreams. Bad thoughts."

"No." Yuusaku shook his head, and lifted himself up just enough that his green eyes glowed in the lamplight. "The bad things ... they happened."

Ryouken swallowed reflexively. Yuusaku had bad dreams of what happened in the basement. He knew it.

Yet Kusanagi held them both close and didn't tense up. "They won't happen anymore."

"But then how do the nightmares go away?"

Ryouken yearned for that answer too. He didn't have them often, but he had his own plaguing thoughts. He held his breath for Kusanagi to shake and shiver, to assure to them that those same nightmares hurt him too.

He was surprised to find Kusanagi hold him as tightly as before, and his voice to remain calm.

"Sometimes, if you talk about the bad things, it makes it easier to know they won't happen again. And you can talk to Jin or me and we'll listen and help. Or we can read a story at bedtime—a happy story so that you go to sleep with good thoughts and keep them in your dreams. But." Kusanagi squeezed them both. "Those are just bad dreams, and I promise that won't happen again. You're here. Safe. And when you wake up in the morning, I'll always be there."

"Promise?" he heard Yuusaku say.

"Promise."

Ryouken didn't need to ask twice. He kept his eyes open but his breaths even, and when he did fall asleep, he realised he dreamt only of sleeping on a bed of sea foam floating across the starry ocean. Yuusaku and Kusanagi were still with him, asleep as well. Far out in the middle of the sea, nothing could shake them. Nothing could even swim out so far to touch them. Their company was the dizzying array of stars splashed on the surface of the water, providing just enough light for Ryouken to rest his head back onto Kusanagi's shoulder and close his eyes and fall fast asleep.


	14. FOURTEEN

Even after Kusanagi explained that lobotomies couldn't happen, and showed them both that Jin's textbook mainly contained pictures of brains and descriptions of its biology, Yuusaku wasn't keen on ever learning about the brain again. Ryouken was still interested in it and continued going to class, but Yuusaku preferred his cookbooks and slow mornings with Kusanagi. When cooking, the worst that could happen was you could burn yourself and need cold water, or cut yourself and need a bandage. His brain never felt sick when he was cooking.

But since the incident, he had still been interested in Roboppy. She had a searching feature that he'd used before—Kusanagi had even said the safe search was turn on—and within her databases she could tell him every answer in the world. At the moment, she had her holographic screen displaying a cooking channel with hundreds of logged videos categorised by dish and flavour and country of origin.

Yuusaku tapped his fingers to the screen, using his other hand to cup his cheek. There had been a computer in the Bad Room, but Roboppy's computer, or even Kusanagi's computer, reminded him nothing of that boxy, beeping creation. Roboppy's computer was silent, and built inside her with the wires and chips Kusanagi had shown him. She also carried with her a little tablet that fit around her claws. When he tapped that screen, images would appear or videos would play.

"What would you like to watch, Yuusaku?" she said in her peaky, trilly voice. She held the tablet in front of him, with its plain home page and small, blinking search bar. Somewhere there was a keyboard, but Yuusaku knew if he simply called the search terms aloud Roboppy would find videos for him.

"Breakfast dishes."

"Searching videos for 'breakfast dishes.' Eight hundred results found. Shall we watch the first video, Yuusaku?"

He reached for the tablet and flicked through the videos. Eight hundred was far too many dishes to search through, yet on the screen there were images of delicious platters: golden eggs and honey-brown toast; platters of greasy meats that Kusanagi often raved about; and Ryouken's favourites, the heaping piles of rainbow-coloured fruit atop snow-white yogurt.

At the thought of snow, he lifted his head and peered out the window. The snow had stayed after the first fall. The pathways had been cleared and it no longer looked quite like they were living among the clouds; yet when Jin and Ryouken had left earlier that morning, they'd both been bundled up in every piece of winter attire that could be worn, looking more like inflatable beings as they waddled off to school. Once Kusanagi was done for the day, he and Yuusaku would go outside too.

His eyes fell on the people milling to and fro. The store hadn't been opened yet, but there was someone waiting outside the shop with a clipboard and a briefcase. They weren't among the throngs of people heading to and from the office, and by the way they were standing instead of sitting on a bench of hailing a taxi, the stranger didn't look like he waiting for anything.

"What do you see, Yuusaku?" Roboppy asked. She wheeled round to the window and lifted herself to peer through the frosty pane.

He pressed his finger to the glass, right above where the stranger was standing. "Him."

"Do you recognise him?" Roboppy asked.

He shook his head. He hadn't seen anyone familiar since he left the Bad Room. But though this figure was simply just another pedestrian, the man still captured Yuusaku's attention. What was he waiting around for?

The man moved. Walked. Stepped towards the van with slow, deliberate steps. He wore a dark coat and a brimmed hat that shadowed his eyes. Yuusaku couldn't see a single feature of the man but the little clipboard he held under one arm, and the black briefcase he carried in his opposite hand.

"Kusanagi ..."

_Knock! Knock!_

His heart leapt into his throat. The shop wasn't open. It wouldn't be open for many more minutes as Kusanagi was still preparing the day's ingredients.

Kusanagi wiped his hands on his apron. "Coming, coming."

Yuusaku felt his throat seize. That stranger was at the door.

Kusanagi pulled the door open and gave a little shiver. "Hello, may I help you?"

Yuusaku didn't hear what the man called himself, or the other words he said, but as soon as Kusanagi's eyes darted to him, he knew he ought to hide. At the back of the van, the area was even more cramped than the narrow corridor with the cutting boards and computers. His and Ryouken's bunk beds were pushed against one wall, and Kusanagi's bed was tucked just around the bend. The back cupboard separated them, and at the side nearest Kusanagi was the bathroom. Yuusaku's eyes darted to each corner, yet no place looked safe. If he hid in the bathroom, what if the stranger had to use the toilet? If he hid in the closet, what if the stranger checked there?

As he heard the stranger step into the van, his body moved.

Jumped.

He slid under the bed, pushing himself back until his feet touched the wall. Then he curled his body round and flattened himself closest to the wall. If the stranger checked under the bed, they'd see him; there were no spare boxes under the bed, and the edge of the blanket didn't stretch to the floor. From his point of view, he could see Roboppy's wheels as she parked herself nearest the bed. He waited for Roboppy to call out to him, but she remained still, as if Kusanagi had shut her off.

It was only when Kusanagi spoke up that she returned to life.

"Roboppy, please get this gentleman a cup of coffee."

"Yes, master." Not _Yes, Kusanagi,_ as she was often calling him. Her voice sounded foreign too, and for a second, Yuusaku wondered if it had been Roboppy answering at all. But then she headed into the kitchen. Clinks and clatters bounced around the van, and then someone thanked Roboppy in a smooth voice. He wanted to say friendly too. Wanted. But Yuusaku couldn't see who had stepped into the room, and he knew better than to poke his head out and see.

So he stayed stiller than a pebble on the shore. His breaths sounded thick and heavy. When his legs began to itch, he bit his lip to stave away the uncomfortableness. He'd hidden for hours longer. He could stay still.

If he moved, if the stranger found him ...

"Do you have any other staff with you?" the stranger asked Kusanagi.

"No, sir, just Roboppy here, but she mainly handles the business and administration. I alone operate this van."

"And for how long?"

"Four years, sir, since July."

"I see." And then the stranger began to talk again. This time, Yuusaku could hear him clearly, but the stranger was talking about an inspection. He never said what, and Yuusaku strained to catch just what he was 'inspecting,' when the man said, "I'll just take a look around."

His stomach dropped.

The footsteps creaked across the floor, steady and foreboding. With each step, Yuusaku prayed it would be the last to hear, but the stranger kept walking. How many steps to the back rooms, he wondered. The stranger sounded like he was getting closer, the steps shaking the van floor. There was nothing under the bed to cling onto, so Yuusaku clutched his shirt.

If he ran, the stranger would see him.

If the stranger saw him, they would recognise him.

Fujiki Yuusaku, the missing boy. He was still in the newspapers—Kusanagi had never lied about how the police were searching for him. If they found him, they'd send him somewhere else. Not back to the Bad Room, but to another room. Perhaps back to the Bad Man though. And if he was found, they'd find Ryouken too. They'd find both of them and send them back, and he'd never, ever see Kusanagi again, and Kusanagi might even be in _trouble—_

Two dark, shiny feet stopped at the foot of the bed. Yuusaku could see his face in their shiny white spots: his wide eyes, his trembling lips. He held his breath and buried his face in his hands. If the stranger saw him, he didn't want to look into their glassy eyes and see his pale face staring back. He didn't want to see them until he could no longer. Their hands would be on his shoulders. They would pull him from the bed with whatever limbs they could grab onto. He'd writhe. Scream. Kusanagi would even stop him.

But if he looked into the stranger's face, he would freeze and never fight back.

"I keep this door closed when I'm cooking," Kusanagi explained. "Everything I need, I bring up to the front. This is just my private quarters."

The man paused. Yuusaku felt like the stranger's eyes were on their bunk bed.

"I see."

Then the stranger moved away and opened up the closet door. Rifled through the belongings. Spare pots and pans clanged together. The rustle of bread bags and dry packaged ingredients was even louder. Neither the man nor Kusanagi spoke up, so Yuusaku could only discern that he was looking _for_ or _through_ something.

_Click. Clack._

The stranger moved back into the cooking area. More banging, not loud, not like when Kusanagi slopped chili or whisked ingredients in a bowl. The noises were more purposeful and delicate, like he was handling Kusanagi's wares with the utmost care.

Yuusaku slowly released the breath in his lungs when he heard the man say, "I'm just going to step outside and check your tanks, and then I'll be back to give you a brief report."

"Sure thing."

As soon as the door closed, footsteps thundered down the hall and to the bed. Kusanagi's shoes were dull and scratched, and bits of chili stuck to one of the laces. Yuusaku shuffled forward, but Kusanagi sucked in a tight breath.

"Stay there, kiddo. Everything's all right."

"... ok."

Sure enough, the man returned moments later to give a detailed report of whatever he had examined. Yuusaku got lost once more in the fanciful jargon; if the stranger was talking about Kusanagi's cooking, his vocabulary sounded more suited for office work. But the stranger stayed in the main room while he conversed, and so Yuusaku relaxed against the floor and watched. Waited. He no longer had to hold his breath so tightly and force himself to breathe in shallow, even breaths.

Finally, the stranger left.

"Yuusaku," Kusanagi called to him. "Come on out, everything's all right."

Slowly, he pulled himself out from under the bed. Nothing in the bedroom looked out of the place: the closet door was closed, and the bed was still slightly mussed from Ryouken hurriedly making it that morning. Down the hall, the bathroom door was closed. On the counters were the pots of chili and containers of ketchup, mustard, and relish. The whiff of coffee beans floated around the little van.

At the doorway was Kusanagi, holding a little leaflet of papers in one hand.

"You were brave," Kusanagi told him. He knelt down and pushed a candy into Yuusaku's palm.

Yuusaku held it between his fingers. Kusanagi seemed all right, and in fact, the entire van seemed the same from before he'd hidden, yet he couldn't shake the worry that something _had_ changed, a little detail that, when he noticed it, would churn his belly and hurt his head. He'd been fine—scared, but fine—under the bed, but now out in the open he felt naked and exposed. What if the stranger returned? What if someone else came to the door and asked to look around the place?

Gently, Kusanagi's fingers curled over his hand, wrapping the candy between them.

"That wasn't a bad guy."

Yuusaku clenched his wobbling lip between his teeth. "Then who was that?"

"A health inspector coming round for a random inspection. I thought I'd expect him a week or two later, but he was ahead of the game ..." Sighing, Kusanagi ran his fingers through his hair. Grey strands peeked between his fingers, even though Kusanagi couldn't have been that old of an adult. He was younger than the doctors in the Bad Room, at least. Younger and much, much kinder.

"What's a health inspector?" Yuusaku asked.

"Someone who checks that this truck is all up to standards."

"A doctor?"

Kusanagi beat him to the panic. "Not a doctor. More like a ... a cleaner. He makes sure this place is clean."

"But then ..." Yuusaku tugged at his shirt, feeling the sweaty fabric between his palms. "Why did I have to hide?"

He expected Kusanagi to pause, and the silence didn't frighten him. If the health inspector wasn't a bad guy, then how come Yuusaku had to hide so thoroughly? Through his bangs, he saw Kusanagi stop and start like a broken track, and it was Roboppy who cut in to gently remind him, "Master, Yuusaku asked you a question."

"Because someone might still recognise you."

Ah.

He thought so.

"Would he call a bad man?" he asked. A part of him hoped Kusanagi couldn't answer the question.

Kusanagi shook his head. "But they might call someone else."

"Will he find Ryouken?"

A hand settled atop his head. Yuusaku jumped at the contact, but then Kusanagi rubbed his fingers through his hair, just once. The soft blue and pink strands, still fluffy from his bath last night, fluttered in front of his eyes. Kusanagi brushed them away with his gentle fingers, as softly as one might fold ingredients into a bowl.

"You don't need to worry about that. No one will find you or Ryouken. I promised that, didn't I?"

Quickly, he nodded his head up and down. A smile tugged at his lips when Kusanagi smiled too.

"Now come on, onto the bed. You and Roboppy can hang out back here until I'm done work. All right?"

Yuusaku climbed up onto the bed, tugging the covers up towards his chin. Roboppy was at his side, her little eyes curved in half-circles. She had the tablet in her hands too, already open with the search bar for him to decide just what he wanted to watch today.

"Have fun, kiddo."

"See you after work."

* * *

The following day, there was no health inspector, or any other stranger. But when Yuusaku woke up in a cold sweat and his heart racing, he saw, past his bed, Kusanagi was already preparing for the day. For what? Yuusaku crawled over the foot of his bed and watched Kusanagi pack up a single backpack with several small containers. A bottle of water hung from the side, and poking out of the backpack's cup holder was what appeared to be rolled-up papers.

Yuusaku scooched closer. Ryouken slept on at his side, face smushed into the pillows. For such a serious, wise boy, he slept like a messy log. His silver hair even stuck around him like the points on a porcupine.

"Kusanagi."

"Yes, Yuusaku?" Kusanagi raised his head, pulling the final zipper closed on the backpack. He looked like he wanted to speak again, but kept his tongue still.

Yuusaku tilted his head to the backpack. "What's that for?"

"Hiking."

Hiking. He'd read about hiking in one of Roboppy's search engines—about going out and braving rugged trails. Knowing Kusanagi and his penchant for choosing only the quietest places, there wouldn't be another soul on the trail.

Kusanagi pulled out the papers from the backpack's side pocket and brought them over for Yuusaku to see. On the pages were several large maps with small, snaking trails all throughout the green expanse. Some of the trails were different colours, and they ventured everywhere: from the top of the page to the bottom, and from the left to the right. Yuusaku traced his finger over one of the paths, noting just how much it curved.

"We're taking this path." Kusanagi tapped his finger to a trail at the top of the map. "The road is right here, so we'll get off and go exploring together. Should be good weather for it, even if it's even snowier up there."

Over the countertop, he could see the snow in the window. It must have snowed more last night, if the thick cover over the windows was any indication. Without the windows cleared, the truck was darker, and out of his bed, Yuusaku could feel the chill seeping into his socked feet. He shivered and rubbed at his arms, and Kusanagi chuckled.

"We'll be sure to dress warm. Now, go wake up Ryouken and we'll take off."

He scurried back to bed and pulled at the covers. As usual, Ryouken mumbled and groaned, pinching his eyes closed and his lips together like he'd bitten into a lemon. Then he yawned, so wide he nearly looked like he was roaring, and stretched his arms out in front of him. Yuusaku pulled the covers back even further, holding them steady so that Ryouken couldn't bury himself underneath.

"'s too early, Yuusaku."

"We're going hiking."

"'s too early for hiking."

He opened the blinds at the back of the van to let the light in but, like the front window, the snow had covered the glass in a thick, misty layer. Dapples of sunlight crept through the snow and sparkled on the warm comforter. Despite the meagre light, Ryouken still groaned.

"'s bright."

"Don't you want to go hiking?" Yuusaku asked. "With Kusanagi?"

"Later on."

Behind him came soft footfalls, and then Kusanagi cleared his throat. "Ryouken, you can sleep on the drive up. Are you growing or something? You're sleeping in an awful lot."

Yuusaku pressed his lips together to smother his laughter. He and Ryouken read every night under their blankets, scurrying to sleep only when Kusanagi pushed back his rolly chair and headed off to bed himself. Somehow, Yuusaku never felt tired, but then again, he was shorter than Ryouken and didn't seem to grow as much.

With one last groan, Ryouken pulled himself from the bed and stumbled towards the bathroom. Yuusaku tossed the blankets onto the bed and hurried to his spot in the van. Kusanagi had said they could sit in the front seat of the truck so long as they had seatbelts, and so he buckled himself in, all the while eyeing up the plate of toast and apples on the dashboard. When Ryouken came to sit too, it was what rouse him from his sleepiness.

"Where're we going again?" he asked as he took an apple slice and munched away.

Kusanagi slipped into the driver's seat and started the engine. With a roar, the truck started to move.

"Hiking."

"Where though?"

"About an hour away, up north."

An hour sounded like a far away place. Almost too far for Yuusaku to comprehend. He watched the world pass by through the front window, turning from grey city buildings and small, grassy parks to wide open forests with trees as thick as the hotdog truck. The road became windier the further they drove, and he had to hold onto Ryouken or the window to keep himself for tumbling over.

"Have you ever been up north?" Kusanagi asked.

Yuusaku shook his head. He felt like he'd stumbled into a new world.

"I went on a drive once," Ryouken said, and beneath his words, Yuusaku heard the silent _with my father._ "But I don't think we ever went this far."

"Up here, there's no one around."

Ryouken huffed.

"But it's more beautiful that way," Kusanagi continued. "It's got that sort of peace that comes with solitude. You wouldn't get lonely out here."

"And the backpack?" Ryouken asked.

"For snacks. We shouldn't be out too long."

As they headed further into the trees, Yuusaku felt like he could be out here forever. The thick, green canopy provided shade and comfort that the exposed beach and plaza couldn't. In the summer, it must have been a buzzing forest full of woodland animals, but in the dead of winter, the landscape was silent. The snow had swallowed everything. The banks rose so high that he couldn't see the tree trunks, only their drooping leaves. Kusanagi slowed the van as the roads became covered in snow, and soon they were merely strolling through the forest.

Where Kusanagi ended up parking the van wasn't any official spot, but a clear patch off from the main road. Yuusaku looked left and right for anyone else, but there wasn't even another car in sight, much less another person. However, just ahead of them was a little wooden sign with a slab pointing towards the forest.

Kusanagi pointed to it, smiling. "There's the path."

"Where?" Ryouken asked, and even Yuusaku would have asked the same question. He could see the pole, sure, but the path was swamped with snow. There were no trees to clearly mark the trail, and if there were bushes under the white banks, they were well camouflaged.

Kusanagi popped the doors open for them. Yuusaku slid from his seat and dropped into the thick snow. It rose up to his boots, and he had to swing his legs up and over just to walk. Even Ryouken who was slightly taller than him had to lift his legs up before he stepped. Above their heads, Yuusaku couldn't tell whether it was snowing or if fallen snow was slipping from the branches overhead. He stuck out his tongue to catch the falling flakes, and laughed when they landed on his cheeks and eyelashes instead. He pulled off his toque and let the snow topple over his hair.

Ryouken yanked off his toque too, stretching his arms out high. "No one will see us, huh?"

"Do I look like you?" Yuusaku said, motioning to the snow clumps in his hair.

Ryouken laughed outright. He scooped up the snow and moulded it into a tightly packed ball. Yuusaku copied him, wincing as a bit of snow slipped into his gloves. Even with the warm winter gear, he could still feel the chill on the tip of his nose. He buried his face into his scarf as he rolled the ball around, making it grow larger.

"We've played every day in the snow," Kusanagi said. "Don't you want to hike?"

As carefully as he could, he rolled the snowball to the side of the truck; he'd make a snowman before they left. Then he hurried to catch Kusanagi's hand.

"You're not wearing gloves ..."

"I'm an adult."

On Kusanagi's other side, Ryouken swung his arm back and forth. He held Kusanagi's hand too, and he examined the pink skin as a scientist would examine a specimen. "Jin wears gloves."

"Smart-aleck boy," he heard Kusanagi mumble under his breath, and then more clearly: "I just don't have gloves that fit me."

Yuusaku wrapped his hands round Kusanagi's pink fingers.

Hiking, it turned out, was just what Roboppy had described to him. They walked down the snowy trail, sometimes veering off to the side. Though Kusanagi had brought a map, they couldn't find any of the landmarks on the ground, and at times, they couldn't even find the trail through the snow. So they walked in whatever direction fancied them. Kusanagi led them up and down banks and over frozen rivers.

"Can we fall through?"

"If you did, it would be shallow. Look, you can see the rocks below."

Ryouken led the way too. Yuusaku followed in his footsteps, trying to replicate the same path. With each step, he had to swing his foot far ahead of him. Ryouken was much taller, he realised. And Kusanagi was even taller, so that Ryouken couldn't follow in his footsteps.

The further through the forest they trekked, the quieter it became. The snow muffled their voices. The wind that came through the trees blew snow further into the banks and carried their voices away. It made it difficult to hear what Kusanagi or Ryouken were saying, even when he was standing right next to them.

But he heard Ryouken's voice when he asked clear as day, "Will the police ever find us?"

Kusanagi brushed snow from his toque. "No."

"But what about the guy that came yesterday?"

"That was a health inspector."

Ryouken kicked the snow with the toe of his boot. He scrunched his face together as if deep in thought, and Yuusaku tried to think too. Kusanagi had say the stranger from before was a health inspector. He trusted Kusanagi's judgment. But Ryouken raised a point he'd been trying to ignore, and while the panic couldn't settle in his chest—it was far too cold for that—he felt a shiver run down his spine.

"Will my father ever find us?"

"No—"

"Or will he send the police after us?"

"Ryouken—"

"The bad people are still looking for us." Yuusaku swallowed to find his voice amidst the roaring wind. "If they find us, will we all have to go away?"

Even over the sound of the deafening snowfall, Kusanagi's clicking teeth sounded like the clatter of metal. "What has brought this on? The health inspector's visit?"

"Are you in trouble for watching us?" Ryouken asked.

Yuusaku felt his blood run cold.

Ryouken pressed on. "Are the police looking for you too?"

In the snowbanks, Kusanagi looked smaller. And colder. Yuusaku held his hand tightly, hoping his fingers would wrap all the way around Kusanagi's weathered hand to keep him a bit warmer.

"The police are not looking for me, Ryouken," Kusanagi said, and his tone echoed through the empty forest. "They do not know you are with me."

"But if they did ..."

"They wouldn't come here anyways." Kusanagi paused, long enough for Yuusaku to wonder if Kusanagi had cut the conversation short, and then he spoke again. "They have no reason to ever assume you are with me. No one saw you, and no one has figured out who you are. Jin and I do our best to hide you, but there's little chance they'll search every house in Den City for you."

Still, the question pressed in his mind like an icicle-sharp dagger. "But if they did ..."

"Then we would go elsewhere. Move away. Live someone where they wouldn't find us—and that would be before they came after us. I've been keeping track of the bad people, all right? I know if they're looking for us. And right now ..." Kusanagi crouched down, pulling them both in with each of his strong arms. As unfamiliar as the hug felt, Yuusaku pressed his cheek further into the warm jacket.

"You two are safe."

"How do you watch the bad guys?" Ryouken asked, pulling away just enough so that his voice was no longer muffled.

"The computer."

"Can you spy on them?"

"Not like how you think."

"Can we help then?" Ryouken asked. "Can we help ... catch the bad guys?"

A squirm of unease rested beneath his skin. Yuusaku hadn't seen the Bad Men since he'd run away, and he preferred never to see their faces. But Ryouken knew them by other names, and he stood with his chin jutting out and his hands balled at his sides. A warrior. Ryouken was a brave warrior.

Kusanagi rose up to full height and dusted the snow from the tops of their hats. "This is something only an adult can do."

"Then what can a kid do?" Ryouken kicked at a snow clump. "What can me and Yuusaku do?"

_Be kids._

Yuusaku thought he heard Kusanagi say the words, but more clearly, he heard: "Not worry about such troubling things. Keep going to school and talking with Jin. Or with me. Play." They had started walking again, and with each swing of his arms and stomp of his feet, Kusanagi became much more animated. The somber mood had long since swept past them. Ahead, Yuusaku could see the sun cresting the snowbanks, dyeing them golden and peach. The thick trees had broken away to a small clearing, no bigger than the plaza. In the summer, he imagined this area blooming with green grass and wildflowers, and lined with berry bushes. But in the dead of winter, the world was white.

Peaceful, beautiful white.

Not a single step had marred the snow before them. Yuusaku reached out a hand and brushed away a patch for his foot.

"I don't want to go back to my father." Ryouken let out a pleased _harrumph,_ and crossed his arms in front of his chest.

Carefully, Yuusaku stepped into deep snow, letting it rise up past his knees. For a second, he felt like he was slipping into the ground, but just as he tipped to the side, a hand caught him.

Ryouken first.

Then Kusanagi.

"I don't want to go back either," he told them both.

And compared to the glowing sunshine, Kusanagi's smile was the brightest sight in the entire forest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> apologies this is a day late! and one more apology that this fic will be taking a short, month-long hiatus. i'm taking part in the YGO Big Bang and i need to devote more time to completing that fic by mid-May. thus, regular Human Givens postings will either resume on the **13th or 20th of May** depending on writing progress. apologies for this, but in saying this, i can assure you that there will be a new datastorm fic in early August.
> 
> thank you for following this story! please feel free to come poke me on tumblr with questions - I'm more than happy to answer asks, expand on headcanons and all that. I'll just need a bit more time to finish the upcoming chapters ^^
> 
> thank you for understanding! <3


	15. FIFTEEN

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and i'm back! my YGOBB fic is complete and sitting at 98k. it'll need a good edit, but i'm happy it's complete and i hope you look forward to it come August if you like datastorm and small town mystery.
> 
> as for this fic, we're kicking off once more with weekly Monday updates starting with a Ryouken POV chapter. i hope you enjoy!

He was back in the dream world again, the strange one with the flower field. He remembered the dream from last time; he steeled his nerves in preparation for the sudden  _ drop  _ off the cliff. The wildflowers blew in the fragrant breeze. Thick, cotton-candy-like clouds rolled across a shimmering blue sky. Beneath his feet, the grass grew green and soft, and he wished more than anything in the world to lie down among the grass and flowers and gaze up at the beautiful sky. The entire universe was smiling down on him.

Only it wasn't. It couldn't be. His knuckles bore deep holes into his hands. The hair on the back of his neck pricked with each breath of wind. No matter how quaint and charming this field appeared, it was from the nightmare. Any second he would tumble over the cliff. Any second that awful, nails-on-chalkboard voice would pierce his skull and demand he move his body like a puppet and walk himself off the edge of the world. He wouldn't be able to stop it—he never had—but he wouldn't let himself be fooled by the false innocence. He was in danger. Trouble. This was not a safe place and  _ he knew it. _

"Ryouken," a voice called to him, silky and gentle. "Ryouken, aren't you coming?"

He bunched his shoulders up to his ears. His fists clenched even tighter; he  _ had  _ to be drawing blood now.

"I want to show you something, Ryouken."

Hurriedly, he shook his head.

"It's the stars, Ryouken. They're in the water."

There were no stars in the water—just a giant, black maw staring back at him. He had seen it before, countless times that he couldn't count with all the bones in his body. But he still opened one eye. The field was empty save for him, made up of the grass and flowers all dancing in the summertime air. As far as he looked, he couldn't see anyone else. The edge of the cliff was missing too, yet it in this dream, it always appeared out of nowhere, as if someone had taken a pie-piece from the universe and left an empty hole in return. But the person who took away the world, or the person who spoke to him, never appeared.

He opened his other eye and peered around. Nothing  _ looked  _ out of place yet. He chanced a glance at his feet, expecting the ground to disappear beneath him. Yet it remained still.

"Ryouken," the voice said. "Come with me. The stars are in the water."

"A-and what if I don't?"

The voice fell still.

"Will you make me?" he asked. "Will you push me off the edge?"

"The stars are waiting for you."

"They aren't."

In the blink of an eye, the grass and flowers disappeared under a thick, cotton blanket of snow. It fell atop his head in one mass that sent him down to his knees were it not for the feeling of someone holding him steady, one arm on each shoulder. Ryouken squirmed from side to side, but the hands locked round his upper arms and pressed into the tender skin of his armpits.

"Take a step forward."

His foot moved. "N-no."

"Another step."

He was going off the edge again. All semblance of maturity and nonchalance disappeared. He threw himself backwards into the stranger, but instead of hitting another body, the grip round his arms tightened and pushed him forward. Ryouken dug his heels in. Screamed. He'd never bit anyone, not even as a young child, but with his arms bound, he had no choice but to use any weapon at his disposal. He swung round, intending to sink his front teeth into a hand or wrist.

Something  _ else  _ held his head forward. It couldn’t have been a hand, there were already two on his shoulders, but a new person had appeared and held him too tightly.

He threw his head back and howled. "Let me go, now, now stop! Stop!"

"Another step."

He slammed his full weight back, then to the side, to the other side. The force of his writhing had  _ him  _ gasping for breath and heart racing, but he didn't hear a peep from the strangers behind him. His refusal was pointless. No amount of writhing obstructed them, and they never seemed upset or inconvenienced. Every few seconds the stranger said, "Another step," and he moved like a mechanical toy.

It was the same sight as before. The snowy field disappeared to the brown edge of a tall cliff, and beneath it, the great, black maw.

Ryouken squeezed his eyes closed, pushing back with all his strength. It was a dream. A bad dream. The worst sort of nightmare that he had had over and over again, but he would wake up. He had to.

The hand grabbed his shoulder and hung him over the edge. Ryouken's stomach vaulted into his throat in preparation for the plummet.

"Another step."

A drop.

A catch.

He was still hanging.

"Look down."

Ryouken shook his head, back and forth. He squeezed his eyes closed, pulling away from the breeze streaking past his cheeks and rustling his hair. The maw was staring back at him. Waiting for him. He knew exactly what he would see down there.

"The stars are down there, Ryouken."

_ They can't be,  _ he tried to say. Nothing but  _ evil  _ was down there, ready to swallow him up like a tasty snack.

"Another step."

He  _ dropped— _

Ryouken heaved to with a piercing scream, kicking the blankets, Yuusaku and the storybook he'd been reading in the process. Only the book toppled to the ground; the blankets flew around them, and Yuusaku came to with a gasp, scrabbling at the sheets. Shame burned Ryouken's cheeks far faster than Yuusaku could come to the realisation that he'd been awoken.

"Sorry!"

"Ryouken?" Kusanagi's voice came from down the hall of the truck, pitched in confusion. Then a second later, "Yuusaku? You too?"

Ryouken grabbed the blankets and yanked them back on his lap. He reached for the book too, but before he could grab it, Kusanagi appeared round the corner. Deep shadows hung  under his eyes. His voice was still groggy with sleep, and he rubbed at his neck. All that sleeping on the chair must have put a crick in it.

"It's fine," Ryouken said, fisting his hands in the sheets.

Kusanagi nodded tiredly at him. "Are you going back to sleep, or do you want to stay up?"

Next to him, Yuusaku was alert. He held onto Roboppy's hand; she stood ever-vigilant next to his bed, her digital screen glowing with two curved eyes.

"I'll stay up." He slipped from the covers and headed to the bathroom. By the time he was out, Kusanagi and Yuusaku had already headed to the main part of the truck and begun to make breakfast. There were eggs to be made and toast to be grilled, and in fridge Ryouken spotted a clump of grapes to add to his plate.

He took his spot at the counter and began buttering the warm toast that had just come from the toaster. Yuusaku whisked the eggs in the bowl with short, jerky movements. He paused when Ryouken stood next to him, and after a moment, he said rather proudly, "Today is a Jin Day for you."

Ryouken hummed in agreement. "But not a regular Jin Day," he added. "There are no classes today."

"How come?"

"Dunno. But Jin and I will read the textbooks anyways."

At the mention of textbooks, Yuusaku's shoulders slumped. He knew there weren't any scary pictures in the books, and that lobotomies and other horrifying procedures didn't happen anymore, but he didn't like to look at certain pages of the textbook. Ryouken read it away from him most nights.

"Will you learn something new?"

"Jin says he'll teach me about 'memory' today, like where it's stored and all." He patted a hand to his head. "I bet he could tell me exactly where it is."

"Do you know?" Yuusaku asked Kusanagi. He had been preparing some of the mornings ingredients while they cooked breakfast, and at the moment there was chili over his hands.

"Know what?"

"About the memory part of the brain."

Kusanagi laughed outright, clear and hearty. "I only went to school until I was sixteen, and they didn't teach science like that. But there is a part of the brain for memory—think I saw it in an article once."

Any day with Jin was a good day. He hated to admit he was a bit sad he and Jin wouldn't be going to the classroom, or even to the university library. Jin had suggested they stay at his place instead. While Ryouken had been there before, it was that simple fact that had him wanting to be anywhere else: why couldn't Jin take him to another library or another school? There had to be hundreds of places they could go together, and they wouldn't have to worry about crowds and such because Yuusaku would stay at home. When he thought about, it all made sense. And still Jin had said it was a home day.

Yuusaku plucked at the side of his head. "When you get back, will you show me where the memories go?"

"Sure."

For the rest of the morning, Ryouken recited the promise in his head. Jin picked him up from Cafe Nagi in the car, and it felt like a special privilege to ride in the car seat. He recognised the roads and shops nearby, but as they left the main city and towards the suburbs, the familiarity became hazier until he spotted Jin's apartment. Bits of frost clung to the blades of grass out front, and the shrubs and hedges lining the walkway all seemed frozen in time. Not even the gentle breeze brushed by them. The snow had stayed out here too, and in a way, there was more—clumped against the side of the building or piled at the base of a tree.

Jin was dressed like he was going on an Arctic exploration with a thick winter parka, mittens, scarf, and hat. He plucked at Ryouken's jacket and said, "Where's your hat and scarf?"

"Back home," Ryouken said.

Jin raised an eyebrow. "Did Kusanagi buy you one? I told him to."

He'd worn it on the day they went out hiking, but it felt too warm for all the bulky attire. Besides, as soon as he stepped into the lobby, he yanked off his jacket and carried with him up the stairs. Jin chuckled the entire way, muttering something about how kids always ran warmer.

In the hotdog truck, the environment was ever-changing. Kusanagi re-stocked shelves and and moved around tools and equipment. During the day it was a truck and at night a home for the three of them, and sometimes it felt like it tried to be both when he and Yuusaku settled on the front seats with blankets and books while Kusanagi cooked. Jin's house looked the same every time he visited. The rooms were wider and more spacious, but Jin was not one to flip his house upside-down at the drop of a hat. Ryouken knew just where to find the books, where to grab a snack from the kitchen, or where to settle down.

In the first room he found the textbooks. All of Jin's heavy cookbooks were stacked in a pile for when Yuusaku came to visit, and their spots had been taken by a series of textbooks and workbooks pertaining to psychology. Most of the books Ryouken had seen before—Jin brought different ones to class depending on the day of the week—but there were some that permanently stayed home. He'd read these books fewer times. Curiosity piqued, he flipped through the pages for any sight of the brain. The pictures didn't frighten him like they had Yuusaku; he knew Jin wouldn't let him see something so horrifying. It had been Roboppy who showed them the lobotomy too. But this book didn't have many pictures. It was mainly coloured text with some graphs, but every page contained complicated kanji. Ryouken dragged his fingers over the text. Maybe if he touched the characters, he'd recognise them.

"That's my friend's book," Jin said from the doorway. He sat down next to Ryouken and pointed to the page. "Even I haven't learnt this stuff yet, but it's fun to see what I'll someday have memorised."

"But it's about the brain," Ryouken said. Even he could see the kanji for brain.

"Yes, still the brain. But ... behaviour. Patterns. Stuff like that."

Ryouken reached for the next book and pulled it onto the table in front of him and Jin. It had the same fancy, hardback cover, but there were pictures too, accompanied by various colours of text. This book he had seen before.

"Clinical Psychology From Fetal Life to Adolescence," Jin said. This is a book we're studying in one of my classes. You recognise it?"

"It has kids in it."

"It's about kids." Jin flipped through one of the chapters, stopping at a page Ryouken recognised well. It was a graph of a growing child. There weren't enough drawings of children for him to spot which one was him and which one was Yuusaku, as there were only four 'children' on the pages, but the twelve-year-old one looked like him. Taller, more mature, but not an adult.

"This is how a kid's brain matures. See, it grows larger and heavier with each picture; that's because it's becoming smarter."

There was a wall at the back of the truck where Kusanagi measured his and Yuusaku's heights with a pencil. Since they had only lived at the truck for a few months, there was only a single line for each of them, but Kusanagi had explained that someday there would be dozens of marks as they grew taller. Ryouken itched at his head as he tried to picture his  _ brain  _ getting bigger. Did that mean his head grew too?

"Your brain is still growing. It'll stop gaining weight when you turn twelve, and then after that you just gain new information."

"From going to school?"

Jin smiled at him. "Correct."

Ryouken dragged his fingers across the page. "And the memory? Where do it go when you're twelve years old?"

"You remembered." Jin cupped his cheek in one hand, and with the other pulled out another textbook. This one had many more pictures and graphs detailing the various areas of the brain. "We learned about the hippocampus. That's where memories are ... made. But they aren't stored there. They might be stored ... here. Here in temporal cortex."

The words were large and complex, and Jin pointed to several complicated kanji that Ryouken had to cross his eyes to decipher even the radicals involved. But he heard one word clearly: "Might?"

"We don't know," Jin said with a shrug. "The brain is a mysterious part of us. We don't always know why it does what it does. Sometimes we can predict what it will do: fire off neurons, creates synapses, and the like. But sometimes it does something unexpected, and we're left trying to make sense of ourselves all over again."

Ryouken glared down at the paper. "Sounds complicated."

Jin laughed into his hand and flipped the paper. There was another picture of the brain—of the 'temporal cortex' as Jin had called it. It was beneath the front of the brain, and sort of a wiggly, rectangular shape that extended towards the back. Ryouken brought a hand to his head, tracing from the tip of his ear and back into his fluffy, white hair.

Gently, Jin's finger traced the opposite side. "Remember, the brain has two sides. You have  _ two  _ temporal cortices."

"So two memories?"

"Not quite. But you'll have memories stored on both sides, hemispheres, of your brain. That's just how the brain works."

Ryouken raised his other hand and felt the opposite side of his head, tracing where Jin's finger had just been. When he twisted his lips, parts of his ear would pinch and shift, but he couldn't  _ feel  _ his brain, not like he could feel his heartbeat when he pressed his hand to his chest.

"If your brain's sick," he asked, "what happens if only one side is sick?"

A pause settled over the room. Jin cleared his throat, and in a careful voice, answered, "If one side of the brain is sick, then both sides will be sick. They have to work together."

Ryouken pressed his lips together as another thought came over him. "So if you had bad memories on one side of your brain, then the other side would have to have bad memories too?"

Carefully, Jin turned to face him. Ryouken sunk into his seat. He hadn't meant to ask such a serious question, but the thought had come not only to his mind but to his lips. Holding back would have only made his stomach hurt.

"It might. But the brain is quite strong. It doesn't just get sick from bad memories."

"What about nightmares?" Ryouken asked instead. Those were bad memories, not just bad dreams.

A frown dipped over Jin's soft, brown eyes. "Which nightmares?"

A heavy stone dropped into his lungs. Ryouken coughed into his sleeve and stared down at his hands. "They're just bad dreams."

"Have they been waking you up? I see dark marks under your eyes."

Ryouken rubbed them away with his fingers before Jin saw any further. He had seen them in the morning: raw, purple, like he had two black eyes. Before he'd left he'd checked once more, and they hadn't faded. Maybe if he rubbed them, they would disappear like chalk marks.

"Do you want to talk about those dreams? Or ..." Jin paused, eyes sliding to him for a moment. Ryouken curled his shoulders up to his ears. "Do you want to draw them?"

He blinked. "D-draw them?"

"Sometimes you don't have the words to say what the bad dreams are, but it’s easier to draw them. I've got pens and markers and paper for you to use—"

"But this isn't art class," Ryouken said, rising up from his seat, spitting the words from his cracked lips. "This—this is psychology—"

Jin remained seated, hands folded in front of him. "If you don't wish to do art, that's fine. It's just an idea that came to my mind."

Ryouken balled his hands into tight fists. Heat tinged his ears as he realised how tightly he was standing away from the table, like something had stung him on the bottom and forced him to move. His next movements were mechanical as he took his seat next to Jin and stared down at his clenched fists. They wouldn't open. Wouldn't let go of the anger he'd bottled up.

"I can't draw my dream," he said through his teeth. Air whistled from his short breaths. "I always fall before I see the end."

Jin only hummed.

"But it's not a bad dream like ... like a dark and scary dream. There are no monsters. No bad people. No evil, but ..." He swallowed the next stone crawling up his throat. "Something bad always happens in the dream. I fall off a cliff."

"That sounds like the frightening part of the dream."

Wordlessly, Ryouken nodded. He could still feel the ghost of a breeze through his hair as he tumbled down, down,  _ down  _ into the great maw. No matter how much he convinced himself that he was awake, his heart still raced and his palms sweated like was standing in the sun. When it had snowed, he'd sweated too. Cried out. Dug his heels in so that he wouldn't go over the edge one more time.

"My brain is sick."

"Nightmares can make you feel quite sick, that's true. Do you have those dreams often?"

He nodded once more. "Every night."

"No wonder you have such dark bags under your eyes." For a moment, Jin sounded like Kusanagi—he even looked like him, eyes crinkled and glassy.

"Can you make it all better?" Ryouken asked him. "Or the teacher, he's a brain doctor."

"I can listen to you—"

"Because a doctor might make it worse?" he blurted out.

Jin's eyebrows rose into his bushy bangs. He said nothing, but Ryouken felt a powerful stare on him.

"I'm not allowed to go to the doctor, am I?" he asked. "The doctors did something bad, and so that's why Yuusaku and I can't go to them."

Still, Jin said nothing. He looked like he wanted to though. Ryouken waited for him to speak, but as the silence stretched on, creeping across the carpet and dimming the lights, he found himself speaking once more, if only to chase the hush away.

"There are doctors who do bad things. I've seen them." Again, he paused, waiting for Jin to step in. Kusanagi always got frantic at such topics, tugging him or Yuusaku close and telling them that everything would be OK, that they were safe. Yet Jin remained calmly seated on the floor, not having moved since he first settled down. No matter what Ryouken said, he never got up. 

"Do you know of the bad doctors?" Ryouken asked.

"I don't think I've heard you talk about them."

He flicked the corner of the page with his finger; every muscle in his body itched to move. "Yuusaku talks about them. He calls them the Bad Men."

"And what do you know of them?" Jin asked, still in the same, gentle tone.

"What Yuusaku knows," he said simply, crossing his arms over his chest. A second later, he needed to move them once more, flipping the books open and shut, fiddling with their spines. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Jin set down a small, pliable ball made of putty or dough, or a strange combination of the two. Ryouken meshed it between his hands. Compress. Extend. Poke. Twist. "They're bad men who went down to the basement with my father, even though Father isn't a doctor. He's ... a working man. He goes to work in the city." A pause. "Do you know him?"

"Dr. Kougami?"

"Only important people call him that," he said, biting once more at his lips. "And that's just his last name ..."

"Did your dad meet with the doctors often?"

"The bad doctors," Ryouken corrected at once. "They wore white lab coats like you, but they were older than you. And they worked ..." He paused. "In the basement."

Jin kept quiet. He must have had questions, Ryouken thought. Hundreds upon hundreds of questions that he wouldn't tell to the police or even another living soul. Jin and Kusanagi had made a promise to him. But still he expected Jin to want to  _ know.  _ Hadn't he kept a bad secret from them all? Jin never said a word to him. Ryouken had to fill the silence himself, sometimes with the gentle  _ fwip  _ of turning pages, sometimes with a  _ thump  _ of his feet, and more than once words tumbling from his lips.

"Yuusaku was down in the basement too, with them. He was down there in a room all by himself. He never went down there, but one day he was there. I saw him down there." He pinched at his shirt hem, drawing in another tight breath. "We ran away because Father wouldn't let him go. He wouldn't talk about Yuusaku. He didn't ... he didn't tell me anything. But I saw Yuusaku down there in that lonely room." The more he spoke, the harder it became to speak  _ clearly.  _ Words slurred in the back of his mind. How could Jin hear him now? "Yuusaku won't tell me what happened. He won't say. But—but Jin, something  _ bad  _ happened down there."

"And where were you, Ryouken?"

"U-upstairs." He twisted his hands together, fingers slipping in his own grip. "I was always upstairs. Father didn't let me go downstairs. He didn't let me go into the office. But one day I saw Yuusaku on the computer. He was down there."

Jin pressed a hand to his cheek, ever slow and deliberate with his words. Ryouken felt time tick by one painful second after the other.

"Do you think this might be giving you nightmares?"

"But it was Yuusaku down there. It was Yuusaku who was scared ..."

"What about how you felt, Ryouken?"

He blinked. How he ... felt? His head had screamed and his chest had ached, and all around him the universe had felt like too much. He’d wanted to curl up in a ball and block the world out, just like Yuusaku did when he became distraught. Everything had been  _ too much.  _ But Jin was asking about something different—another painful feeling that tugged at his gut.

"Wh ... why?"

"When you found out Yuusaku was downstairs, how did you feel?"

He shook his head, sniffling.

"Sometimes, when we’re frightened, we have bad dreams and we remember what happened."

"But—but that's not what happened at all—" Ryouken clamped his lips closed, forcing himself to remain level-headed. "We escaped ..."

"You did."

"But in that dream ... I don't ... I  _ fall  _ to the bottom of the cliff, into the giant mouth." A fierce tremor ran from his head to his toes. "Everything was OK and then I ran away."

"It was a very brave decision—"

In a surge of strength, he pushed off from the table once more. No matter how much his legs ached, he couldn't sit. Couldn't fiddle with his hands any longer. "It was bad."

"Bad to do what?"

"Run away."

Jin remained seated, not fiddling with papers or his own fingers. He would have looked like a doctor—a good doctor—if he wore a labcoat, but he wore sweaters and slacks and looked cosy. He never raised his voice either, and as he spoke, Ryouken listened with his gaze downwards.

"But didn't running away help Yuusaku? You took him away from the bad doctors, didn't you?"

"But I stayed—"

"You did."

"Because I didn't want to go back either!" He squeezed his eyes shut, hoping with all his might the world would stop spinning and the wind would stop whistling and everything would pause in its rhythm so he could breathe and think. It worked. His chest cleared with each breath he took, and his feet remained planted on the carpet. Bits of freckled sunlight touched his cheeks and hair, and no breeze threatened to blow him away. When he opened his eyes, Jin was still seated at the table. Nothing in the room had changed. Not the furniture nor the books nor the people. Everything was where it belonged, and he counted it a blessing the room hadn't changed at his outburst.

Jin didn't speak up.

"I ... I didn't want to go back home," he said in a voice just above a whisper. "Because Father would not forgive me. He'd put me down in the basement too. And then … I’d be down there all by myself."

Were it Kusanagi, he would have hugged him close and told him, 'Nobody is coming to find you. You are safe here. You and Yuusaku both are.' He would have. But Jin spoke a different sort of language—a doctor-y language with more pauses than words, and questions and answers alike. Ryouken was never quite sure what Jin would say, if he would say anything at all, and so he sat and waited for any sort of response.

"You were brave on that day, Ryouken. You took Yuusaku away from a very scary situation."

Heat clung to his cheeks, warmer than the midday sun.

"What if your bad dreams had a different ending? One where you didn't walk over a cliff, but across the sky or water?"

_ It wouldn't happen,  _ he tried to say. It  _ couldn't  _ happen.

"Don't you think, if maybe there's a happy memory in your brain, in your temporal cortex, that you could have a good dream?"

The idea sounded far-fetched and impossible. Yuusaku didn't even have good dreams and he spent every day cooking with Kusanagi and reading books. If it were just as easy as changing a memory, how come, after spending so much time at Kusanagi's hotdog truck, he still had bad dreams? He made good memories every day. Every hour of every day. Bubbling in his chest were the words he wanted to spit out at Jin:  _ it's not that easy; I can't change my bad dreams. _

"... there's nothing I can do."

Jin's eyes widened.

"There's nothing I can do for me or for Yuusaku."

Somehow, his words had shut Jin up. They didn't put a startled expression on his face like his words did with Kusanagi, but all the same Jin seemed surprised.

"But if you could," Jin said gently, "what would you do?"

Ryouken squeezed his hands in fists. A hundred things. No, a thousands things. He knew just what Yuusaku liked: his favourite foods like toast and rice; his favourite cooking books; building sandcastles and going for walks on quiet parts of the beach. If it were easy to erase Yuusaku's sadness by going outside and getting some fresh air, he was sure he and Kusanagi would have walked from the north to the south points of Japan without ever looking back. But it wasn't that easy. Yuusaku cried even after a good day of cooking. He cried each night no matter what, and sometimes Ryouken found him lying wide-eyed against his pillow, too frightened to close his eyes.

"I can't do anything," he said to Jin, letting the bitter taste at the back of his throat crust his words.

At his words, Jin raised a finger. "You can't do anything to  _ fix  _ Yuusaku's nightmares. That is what you mean. Just like the brain, you can't fix a person. But you can  _ do  _ something, can't you? Just like Kusanagi does things for you, and you do things for him. What do you do for Yuusaku that could help him have happier dreams?"

Jin wasn't listening to a word he was saying, and it felt like a volcano was boiling in his belly.

"You can't change what has happened to Yuusaku, just like how Kusanagi and I can't change what has happened to the both of you. We can't turn back time. But we can be there for you. We can spend time with you, cook with you, read with you."

A vile part of his mind wanted to blurt out,  _ And that's not helping.  _ But ... in a strange way, it was. It hadn't erased his nightmares or the awful feelings that hung his heart from a rope, but he didn't cry anymore. He didn't worry about Kusanagi calling the police. Most days he spent in bliss, going to and from school just like a normal schoolboy, albeit to a prestigious university. Ryouken cupped his face in his hands as the realisation that  _ something  _ had changed dawned on him like the pulse of the waves. Whether it was the something Jin referred to, he couldn't tell, but Jin's words made an inkling more sense than before.

Head bowed, he marched back to the table and settled down across from Jin. He folded his arms in front of him like was preparing to deliver a professional speech, and said, "I can help."

"You can help," Jin said with a firm nod. "But I think you ought to decide how you want to help yourself—"

"Yuusaku," he interrupted. "I want to help Yuusaku."

Jin continued on and a steady smile. "And how would you like to help? I'm sure you know Yuusaku well."

Every thought in his mind left all at once. Ryouken opened and closed his mouth. When Jin's silence became too audible, he narrowed his eyes. "I'm thinking."

"Take you time."

That only sounded condescending. Jin hadn't said anything about staying in the room—and in fact, there had never been any spoken rules about where he ought to go and if he had to respond. The apartment spoke for itself in a strange, zen way. But the air felt clearer and the ground warmer, and so Ryouken headed out of the room and down the hallway. Jin's room was off-limits, but the kitchen wasn't and the door had been left open. On the counter were several bowls and mixing utensils, and a great bag of flour. Just to the side of it was a bread tin. Ryouken glanced from the ingredients to the tin.

When he turned round, he expected Jin to be standing in the doorway. But he had remained in the first room, still seated in front of the table. Ryouken hovered at the doorway, the bread tin hung in one hand. Jin smiled at him, then down at the tin.

"Can you make bread with all that?"

Jin tapped a finger to his cheek. "I bet you could." He rose from his spot and followed Ryouken back into the kitchen.

"Because Yuusaku doesn't like a lot of foods. He only eats bread, and rice, and sometimes fruit. He doesn't like sweet or sour or salty or bitter foods, so he has to eat the gummies Kusanagi buys for him." He climbed onto the step stood placed in front of the counter. The ingredients were all laid out in a nice row, but there was no recipe nearby. He rolled up his sleeves to his elbows and washed his hands under the sink. Jin slipped on a soft, white apron, tying it in a loopy bow behind him. He washed his hands too and stood next to the counter, next to Ryouken tapping his hands against the countertop.

"I have the recipe here on my duel disk," Jin said. He flicked on his duel disk's holographic screen and enlarged the recipe for Ryouken to see. The ingredients were all listed at the top, and beneath it were several steps. The recipes that Kusanagi used were all printed, crinkled pieces of paper stained with oil, coffee, and batter, but Jin's recipe and countertops were orderly. The first step glowed in preparation for cooking.

"Let's start by combining ingredients. Can you measure out the flour?"

When he cooked with Kusanagi, he chopped and stirred. It was the same actions with Jin, but ... different. Cooking with Kusanagi meant lengthy conversations and chatter, and often at least one egg falling on the floor. Jin was neater. More precise. It made him wonder whether being a chef came with a certain level of messiness and clutter. After all, Jin was a doctor. He  _ had  _ to be precise and organised. But it was still fun to cook with him. Once the ingredients had been added together, he kneaded the dough with his hands. The heel of his palm dug deep into the stretchy dough. Jin called it, 'Stretching the gluten.'

Another difference between Kusanagi and Jin: Jin used fanciful language. He talked about the gluten in the bread and the fungi in yeast. Ryouken drunk in the information as if he were parched. The bread stretched because of the gluten and rose because of the activated yeast. It grew to twice its size inside the covered bowl, and then even more when they slipped it into the oven. He watched through the glass panel in the oven door to see the bread grow and crisp, turning from a white, spongy lump into a crisp, golden-brown loaf. The bread Yuusaku ate was white too.

"Will it taste like the bread at the store?" he asked Jin as it cooked.

"It should."

"Yuusaku only likes the white bread from the store."

Jin looked like he might say something more, but he hummed and nodded and crouched down next to him.

Atop the counter was a little egg timer that let out a trilling ring when the bread was done. Jin took the tin out of the oven and set it on a wire cooling rack. Ryouken scurried back up to the counter to see. He poked the top of the bread with a finger and winced at the heat. Not only was it warm— not scalding—but it was crispy; the heat had created a strong crust round the bread while keeping the middle soft and squishy. He couldn't  _ see  _ the inside, but he could smell it, as odd as it sounded. Fresh bread smelt heavenly, and he dreamt of dousing his in honey or syrup, or lathering it in butter. Yuusaku would take his plain, but he would savour it.

A little noise escaped between his lips before he could smack his hands over his mouth.

Jin chuckled into a fist. "We need to let it cool for a bit, but when it's done, we'll wrap it up and bring it over."

With his hands still over his mouth, Ryouken nodded. Jin had left one of the cookbooks on the counter and he perused through it while he waited for the bread to cool. The book was full of heavenly, gourmet loaves—not the sort of bread Yuusaku would ever try, and some filled with olives and chives that even made Ryouken grimace, but the sort of breads he imagined would be served at fancy, white-collar events. Then there were loaves that looked too weird for even those  _ events.  _ Had someone simply come up with the idea on the spot and dumped ingredients together? The brown, canned bread certainly seemed like it.

By the time he finished reading the cookbook, the bread had cooled. Ryouken wrapped it tightly in a towel, and then used another towel to lie on top and keep the heat in. He could still feel the heat on his palms as he carried the loaf out the door, down the stairs, and to Jin's car.

Jin held the door open for him and took the bread as he climbed into the seat.

"Is this really going to give Yuusaku good memories?" Ryouken asked.

"The good memories could come from anything: the food, the people you share it with, the place where you break bread with those you care about. There are no certains when it comes to who or what we remember. But you baked Yuusaku something he likes, and I would suspect he would thank you for it." Jin passed him the loaf. Ryouken cradled it in his arms, careful to not squeeze the crust.

When the car pulled next to the Cafe Nagi hotdog truck, Ryouken couldn't help but squeeze his arms together. He undid his buckles before Jin could even get out of the car to help him, and when the door opened, Ryouken ran for the door. Kusanagi was busy serving customers at the window, and he gave a little nod to Ryouken as he opened the driver's door. Inside, Yuusaku was seated on the front seat, flipping through one of his new cookbooks. Roboppy sat on the seat next to him. Her hard, metal body didn't bend; she couldn't curl her legs up like Yuusaku. Instead, she balanced like an egg on a ledge, almost as if she were  _ stuck  _ on the seat. She didn't seem to care as she read out the words on the page.

"Step two: Cream together the butter and sugar using a hand mixer. Step three: Add flour—"

"Ryouken!" Yuusaku lifted his head from the book and smiled at him. His eyes travelled down to the loaf. A curious glimmer appeared in his green eyes. Pushing the book from his lap, he uncurled himself from the chair and scooched closer to see.

Ryouken kept the towels over the loaf and held it out for Yuusaku to see. "Can you guess what it is?"

Yuusaku pressed his lips together. "Did you make it?"

"Yeah, but what did I make?"

Yuusaku closed his eyes and sucked in a deep breath. His brows pinched in concern. Next to him, Roboppy seemed unsure of the item too, tilting her head from side to side.

"I'll give you a hint," Ryouken said. "I  _ baked  _ it."

"A pie?"

He shook his head.

"A cake?"

Yuusaku was guessing foods that  _ he  _ liked. Ryouken shook his head. Carefully, he passed the loaf to Yuusaku but kept the towels over it. The heat from the crust was still there, and even after he handed the bread over, Ryouken could smell the heavenly aroma. Yuusaku took the loaf and pressed his hands against it. He leaned closer and sniffed it once more. Then his eyes  _ sparkled. _

"Bread." He yanked off the coverings, revealing the crisp, white loaf. The short trip from Jin's apartment to Cafe Nagi hadn't softened or chilled the crust. Yuusaku pulled off one of the ends to reveal a fluffy, white middle that made his stomach gurgle. He'd never seen food so delicious in his life.

Without even waiting to show it to Kusanagi, Yuusaku popped the first piece into his mouth. He winced at the initial heat, but a steady smile settled over his expression as he chewed. Before he'd even swallowed the first piece, he teared off another section and ate it too.

Ryouken reached forward to pluck a corner off for himself. It was ... good. Soft and fluffy, with a crisp exterior and a pillowy interior. Were it his loaf, he would have added cinnamon and raisins, or made a lemon cake, or simply added berries to give it additional flavours; or with this loaf he would have lathered it in butter or jam. But whatever the flour and water had done had made something truly good—and even better was Yuusaku's warm smile as he plucked piece after piece and devoured them like he was filling up his heart  _ and  _ belly. It wasn't until they were a quarter of the way through the loaf that Yuusaku began to speak up.

"You made this?"

"With Jin."

"From a cookbook?"

"One of the ones Jin has." Ryouken licked crumbs from his fingers. "Do you like it?"

Yuusaku kept on smiling and nodding. He pulled the cookbook he had been reading onto his lap and flipped to one of the sections on baked goods. Pies, pastries, tarts, and treats were arranged on tiered trays and delicate china dishes, most of them glazed or fruit-coated or perhaps both, and all of them scrumptiously sweet.

"You could bring this book with you," Yuusaku said between mouthfuls. "To make a treat."

Chuckling, Ryouken pointed to one of the glistening jam tarts filled with blackberry or blueberry. "Maybe with Kusanagi. This was just a special day to cook with Jin."

"I'm sure you could," Yuusaku said, his tone insistent. "He cooks with me. He would cook with you too, I'm sure, more than once if you wanted."

The jam tarts did sound delicious, and Jin would have the ingredients in his kitchen. He always seemed to have baking supplies.

"All right," he said. "Next time we bake, I'll bring this book with me. I'll bring you back a tart too—a plain one, all right?"

The smile hadn't left Yuusaku's face, not once, as his cheeks puffed with bread. He had never looked happier, crumbs clinging to the corners of his mouth. Next to him, Roboppy had a smile across her screen too. Her eyes curled into rainbow-like semi-circles. Ryouken almost thought he heard her say,  _ "Yuusaku is happy." _


	16. SIXTEEN

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> apologies for the one-day delay, but it's here! and this maaaaay be one of my favourite chapters :3 there's something special about Kusanagi. also say hello to a new character in this chapter - they'll be re-occurring from this point onward <3

He'd gotten so good at cooking that he no longer needed Kusanagi at his side. Yuusaku stood at the counter whisking together butter and sugar with a small hand mixer. It had once been difficult to both hold and turn, but he'd become accustom of the rhythm. Now it was a piece of cake to cream the ingredients together into a mostly-smooth, golden paste. He added the flour next, then the baking powder. The batter began to look like, well,  _ dough:  _ a thicker, pastier consistency that he then formed into small dough balls. He poked chocolate chips around the cookies that would be for Kusanagi and Ryouken, and left his own plain.

Turning around, he said to Kusanagi, "Can I put them in the oven now?"

Kusanagi smiled at him. "Already pre-heated for you. I'll help you with that part though. It's hot." He took the tray and slid it onto the middle-most rack. "How long do these ones take?"

"Roboppy, how long do the cookies take?"

"Six minutes, then left to cool on the tray for two minutes more."

Yuusaku reached for the egg timer and spun it to six minutes. He left it on the counter so he would hear it when it trilled. Though it was the early morning, he wouldn't need to worry about waking anyone, specifically Ryouken, up. He had gone out with Jin to the library; all morning he'd been prancing round the van talking about the great trip. There had been a flicker of sorrow when he'd left and Yuusaku had watched him out the window, but as much as Yuusaku wanted to spend time with Ryouken, he didn't want to go to the library. He still remembered that day long ago, sitting on the chair and crying softly while Ryouken figured out where they ought to run to.

So today he and Kusanagi were home together. It was Kusanagi's day off too, yet he hadn't slept in or relaxed for a second. All morning he'd be filing paperwork for Cafe Nagi or preparing grocery lists, and when he wasn't doing that he was helping Yuusaku cook.

Sighing, Yuusaku crouched down in front of the oven. He'd woken up wanting to bake cookies and muffins, yet Ryouken wouldn't be able to eat them until he came home and Kusanagi hadn't even eaten breakfast. They both had too much to do.

"Why the long face?" Kusanagi asked him. He sat at his desk with a pencil tucked behind one ear. Dozens of piles of paperwork sat on his desk. They had all been hiding away  _ somewhere  _ in the van, and had come out today for Kusanagi to sort through. Yuusaku had taken one look at them and felt himself grow dizzy. He couldn't read, and yet most of these files had had numbers and they were somehow  _ more  _ confusing. Roboppy helped him stack the papers into orderly piles that were quickly growing to the size of mountains.

"Yuusaku," Kusanagi asked him again. "What's up?"

"There's so much ..." he said, nodding to the paperwork.

Kusanagi rolled his eyes, leaning back in his computer chair. "That's because I procrastinate and let it all pile up. But trust me, it's not much work." A pause. "Why? You want to do something today?"

He shook his head—Kusanagi had far too much to do.

"Look, I can get this done tonight, all of it. It's ... work stuff. But if you want to do something, we've got time. What did you have in mind?"

He pulled his shoulders up to his ears.

Kusanagi began to put the paper away. "Roboppy," he said aloud, "what should we do today?"

"Today is December Third, sir. It is minus five degrees outside. There is a—"

"Roboppy, what should we  _ do  _ today? What activities?"

Within Roboppy came an odd, whirring sound, the noise a computer might make when it was completing too many difficult processes. On her faceplate came several flickering lights. Yuusaku waited for her lights to click off and her entire system to reboot. However, after a moment, she answered: "On winter days, humans like to drink hot beverages and go for brisk walks. Parks, forest reserves, and temples are popular destinations. Human may also go out to eat food or bathe at an onsen."

It had been an answer, but the frown on Kusanagi's face only deepened. "What about ... quiet activities? Ones without busy crowds?"

"Did you mean: a quiet walk?"

"Just the two of us?" Yuusaku asked. It had been a while since he and Kusanagi had done anything together. Normally, he, Kusanagi, and Ryouken visited quiet parks and trails. The snow would be deeper than their knees and no one would have walked the path since the snow first started falling.

"Just the two of us," Kusanagi said. "Would you like that, Yuusaku? A walk, or maybe a trip to the park?"

The last time he had been to the park was when he had just met Kusanagi. He had sat on the bench the entire time, too frightened to dare move or even speak up. Ryouken had tried to play at the park too, but without another kid to play with, they'd ended up heading home early. Yuusaku stared down at his toes. Without Ryouken, who would he play with?

"Roboppy could even come with us," Kusanagi said. "We put winter tires on her, remember? She can four-by-four."

Roboppy let out a happy trill of agreement. "Yes, Yuusaku. I can walk with you now."

He gummed his lip with his front teeth, mulling the thoughts in his head. "If we go together ..."

"Of course," Kusanagi said. He gave him a pat on the head, flicking his hair up. "Let's get the cookies out first and then we'll go. We'll even bring a picnic snack."

On cue, the egg timer buzzed and vibrated. Kusanagi swept the cookies free of the oven and laid them on the wire rack to cool. Meanwhile, Yuusaku hurried to the bathroom to brush his teeth, and to the back room to change into his warm, winter clothing. Jin had brought him winter clothing a few days ago: thick, cotton and wool sweaters; cotton-lined jeans; and a variety of pullovers to go underneath his winter parka. As he dressed, he felt like he even  _ looked  _ like Jin who dressed for the winter weather like he was braving the Arctic. Kusanagi wore a single, blue hoodie.

"Don't you get cold?" Yuusaku asked as he sat on the doorstep and pulled on his boots.

"I have viking blood in me," Kusanagi told him, patting his chest. "I don't get cold."

Like Ryouken then who stripped off his jacket as soon as he was allowed to and ran outside in a sweater. Yuusaku nestled deeper into his layers. He pulled the black toque over his head, tucking in any stray blue or pink strands of hair. It had been a long time since he had to worry about being seen, but the fear still nagged at him. Ryouken had said the missing posters were still out there. People were looking for him.

Once they were ready, Kusanagi opened the side door and let him wander out into the snow. There hadn't been another snowfall in several days, but there was plenty still lying on the ground like they were living in the clouds. The benches that were scattered round the square were partially hidden, as were the barrels and baskets of flowers. The lampposts, being the tallest, stood out, but even they wore an inch or two of snow. Only the sea beyond them had staved the winter off; it hadn't frozen except at the sides of the boardwalk. Kusanagi had told him the sea would never freeze since it didn't get that cold here in Den City.

Roboppy stayed next to him as he wandered round the square. Her wheels had been fitted with chains to help her manoeuvre, and when she rolled, she left strange, linked tire-prints on the ground. Yuusaku's boots had squiggly lines on the bottom. As he hopped round the snowy ground, he made more and more footprints.

Kusanagi stepped outside and waved a hand, the other one holding onto the picnic basket. "All right, let's go."

Yuusaku scurried over and took Kusanagi's free hand. He held onto Roboppy's metal claw with his other hand, so that the three of them walked in a line. None of them could get lost. Though, he mused with a soft laugh, it would be hard to get lost in a place as empty as the plaza. The weather had been cold, snowy, and at times slippery, so far and few people walked down the paths. He didn't have to duck his head when they passed by a crowd of people. There simply wasn't anyone around.

He swung his arms from side to side, making Kusanagi chuckle.

"Which park should we go to today?" Kusanagi asked.

He paused. "Don't know any."

"Well there's the one you've been to before, or there's one a few minutes down the road by the forest. I don't think you've been to that one before, unless Jin took you to a park."

"I always stay at Jin's house," Yuusaku said with a nod. They stayed indoors where it was warm and dry; where Jin kept his books and bread.

"Would you ever want to go to a park with Jin?" Kusanagi asked. "I'm sure he'd take you. There're parks near his apartment, if I remember correctly."

Yuusaku squeezed Kusanagi's hand. "I want to go with you, and with Ryouken too."

Kusanagi's smiles were always genuine. "Next time, we'll go as the three of us. We can pack a lunch again and have it at the park. Trust me, there won't be anyone else having a winter picnic."

They walked past the first park on their way to the new one. It had been long ago, if he remembered correctly, but he still remembered the climbing structure Ryouken had played on, and the bench he and Kusanagi had sat on. Both the climber and bench had been snowed on too, and the wood chips that had surrounded the playground were hidden too.

Past the park, Yuusaku had never seen the city. The sidewalk snaked through several small shops and then tucked away into another grove. The path was lined with little, green bushes—or they would have been green were it not winter. The leaves had remained, but they were hidden until Yuusaku patted one with his palm, revealing waxy, almond-shaped leaves. He peered underneath for berries. Between the bushes were lampposts too. The occasional landmark sign was fixed into the ground to describe a particular kind of tree or bush, or to comment on the history of the park. Yuusaku stretched up on his tiptoes and brushed the snow from the sign.

"What does it say, Roboppy?"

"Den City South Green Park: A History."

"And here?" Yuusaku tapped a printed photograph of several ships sailing across the sea. Through the trees ahead he could see the dark blue of the ocean.

"Photograph: Ocean liners delivering goods to Den City's ports, 1905."

"So long ago ..."

Kusanagi chuckled. "I wasn't even around back then."

Yuusaku pushed off from the sign. Down the path there was another one describing the Japanese maple trees growing in the area; in spring they would get their leaves. Another sign described several important founders that restored the park. Yuusaku let the signs guide him down the path, calling to Roboppy to read them aloud for him. Kusanagi followed after him, hands in his pockets.

The path didn't stop at the park, but it led to and then continued through the greenspace. Yuusaku stopped at the entrance to the park, toes hanging over the edge. Just like the other park, there was a climber and swings. Various benches were positioned along the perimeter for children and their families to sit and rest. A large grassy patch was also set to the side, and by the way the trees had been planted one across from the other, they looked like goalposts for soccer. But the park wasn't empty. There was a boy rolling a snowball the size of  _ him  _ across the park. He must have been rolling the ball for quite some time, but despite its size and weight, the boy pushed on, digging in his heels and using both hands to  _ shove  _ the snowball forward.

He squeezed Kusanagi's hand tightly. There wasn't supposed to be anyone else at the park. It was too cold. Too blustery. But not only was there another kid, there was a  _ man  _ too—an elderly gentleman sitting on the bench reading a newspaper. Every so often he would glance up from his paper and call to the boy, and the boy would call back to him.

"The park's big," Kusanagi said in a falsely cheerful voice.

Yuusaku clung to him even more tightly. They stepped into the park, wandering around the perimeter to one of the benches across the park from the elderly man and the boy. Kusanagi and Roboppy brushed the snow from the bench, and Yuusaku climbed onto the seat. An ache blossomed in his chest. He didn't  _ want  _ to sit on the bench all day. He wanted to play at the park; he'd specifically requested it because he wanted to have a fun day. But now that dream had been crushed.

Kusanagi opened the picnic basket and handed him one of the cookies he'd made that morning. It was still warm and gooey, but Yuusaku only nibbled on it.

"What if we built something right here?" Kusanagi said. "Right in front of this bench. You, me, and Roboppy."

The snow under the bench was deep, and though the boy across the park had rolled his snowball all around, there was still plenty of snow left. Yuusaku toed his feet at the ground.

"You know," Kusanagi said, crouching down and gathering snow in his bare hands, "snow is kinda like sand ... just colder. And differently coloured. And—well, it's entirely different, but you can build with it just like sand. So how about we build a  _ snow castle  _ together, Yuusaku? Just like that day on the beach."

Carefully, he wriggled off the bench and knelt in the snow. His mittens helped him grip the cold snow and pack it together into a neat, round ball. Kusanagi had been right: the snow was good for building, sticking together just like the wet sand. He scooched forward and began to push more snow together into large, lumpy piles. Kusanagi shaped them into towers and domes. With her claws, Roboppy couldn't complete any fine-motor task, so she pushed piles towards him when the snow around him depleted.

They only got through building the rough structure of the castle before the little boy showed up. He'd left his snowball across the park. Yuusaku stiffened and drew back. The boy was his age, or maybe Ryouken's; he was taller than Yuusaku, with fluffy, white-and-red hair and a heavy, red jacket and red scarf to match. The cold had nipped at his cheeks and nose, but he smiled nonetheless.

"What're you doing there, mister?" he asked, crouching down to see the castle.

"Building," Kusanagi said. "If you want to join us, ask Yuu ... Yuu first. He knows what we're building."

The boy turned towards him, green eyes as bright as a forest in full bloom. "Can I help?"

Yuusaku nodded his head. Out of the corner of his eye, Kusanagi gave a thick swallow.

"What are we building, Yuu?"

"... snow castle."

The boy leaned close, examining each other the pillars. "Where are the guards to guard the castle?"

Yuusaku furrowed his eyebrows. When he and Ryouken had built a castle, there had been a castle, a moat, and a flag atop the tallest tower. But the boy had already begun to build the guards. He clumped snow into his mittened hands and rolled them like dough balls into long, narrow pieces. Then he shoved them down into the snow. Soon there was an army of snow soldiers in front of the palace, neatly arranged in rows with one soldier standing before all the others.

"That's the leader," the boy said. "And the hero ... the hero goes here." Another snow person was set ahead of the leader, guarding the palace as if he were the only person there. "And the dragon ..."

Yuusaku watched him add person after person to the castle—though, he realised a moment later, they weren't all soldiers. There were kings, queens, princes, and princesses that stood atop the castle; the other people who lived in the castle too, who the boy didn't know where to put and ended up sticking them outside of the castle walls; the dragon and the giant, both also having to go outside of the palace. He had an imagination that reminded Yuusaku of opening a storybook: full of magical ideas that had him listening intently. Soon, the castle had become a city with a palace, sprawling out across the park.

"What do you think?" the boy asked, dusting off his frosty mittens. "Should we make another one?"

Another palace—that would take all day.

"Say," Kusanagi asked, "what's your name?"

"Homura Takeru and I go to Den City Primary."

A student then. Ryouken had told him about the schools in Den City before he went to university with Jin.

Takeru frowned. "You don't go to my school though. How old are you?"

Yuusaku held up his fingers.  _ Six. _

Takeru mimicked him. "I'm six too and I go to school."

"He goes to a different school," Kusanagi explained, setting a hand on his shoulder. Yuusaku clung to Kusanagi's jacket.

"Which one?" Takeru asked. 

Yuusaku chewed down on his lip. Even Kusanagi looked uncomfortable. Yuusaku squeezed Kusanagi's hang for dear life.

Then Takeru sighed gustily, swinging back and forth on his heels. "Say, what did you bring there?" He was looking past Yuusaku, at the picnic basket sitting on the bench. Yuusaku pulled out the cookies wrapped in cloth and offered one of the chocolate chip ones to Takeru.

Before Takeru could take a bite, Kusanagi cut in. "Yuu, we need to ask your friend's dad if it's OK for him to eat that. Uh ... Takeru, can you go check with ..." He voice petered away as he stared at the man down at the bench, still reading his newspaper.

Takeru followed his gaze. "Oh that's my  _ ji-ji.  _ I'll go ask him." As quick as a flash of light, Takeru was gone. Yuusaku held the cookie in his hand. It wasn't poisonous.

Kusanagi knelt down next to him, giving his hair one quick tousle. "Sorry, Yuu. We can't just give anyone food without asking their family first. That goes for you too, all right? If someone gives you food, come ask me first."

Yuusaku nodded his head. He swore he heard Kusanagi mutter something else, a hushed,  _ shit, should have taught the kids this,  _ or something vaguely similar. But before he had a chance to question him, Takeru returned and eagerly accepted the cookie. His grandfather gave them a little wave from his spot on the bench; Yuusaku held his breath, waiting for the other stranger to move. He only let out the breath when the grandfather remained seated and reading his paper.

The cookies had been fresh and soft when they were wrapped into the cloth. As Takeru bit into one, chocolate smeared across one of his lips. There were no crumbs, just sticky dough, but it still made a mess. Kusanagi passed Takeru one of the paper napkins they'd brought along too.

"Hey!" Takeru exclaimed, shaking the napkin in his hand. "That's—that's the hotdog shop!" On the front of the napkin was the Cafe Nagi logo: a dog's face, encircled with a gold border, and green 'Cafe Nagi' lettering underneath. The very same napkins were all over the van, used to clean up spills or wipe noses. Yuusaku had never paid them any thought, but Takeru seemed over the moon by the realisation.

"I work there," Kusanagi said. "And Yuu—Yuu here helps me out. He made those cookies."

Yuusaku ducked his head down in embarrassment.

"You made these?" Takeru held out his hand, as if to show him the cookie, butv all that remained were crumbs and chocolate stuck under his nails.

Yuusaku handed him another one.

"By yourself?" Takeru asked between mouthfuls. He wiped his mouth with his wrist and asked again, "Did you do  _ all  _ of it by yourself?"

After a pause, Yuusaku nodded. He'd found the recipe, followed it, and added the ingredients. Kusanagi had helped him put them in and out of the oven, but that was only because his arms were too short to reach into the oven, and he wasn't strong enough to carry the baking tray. But every other step he had done.

"Who's that?" Takeru asked next. He had many questions, perhaps as many as he had ideas for playing. But his question, while for Yuusaku, was directed at Roboppy. He'd called her a 'who' instead of a 'what,' so he was familiar with robots, but he stared at her with curious eyes.

Roboppy tilted her head towards him. On her face plate glowed a happy smile. "My name is Roboppy. I am pleased to meet you."

"A robot," Yuusaku said, holding onto Roboppy's hand. She trilled when their hands connected, and the claw-like appendage curled gently around his finger.

Takeru leaned  _ even  _ closer, nearly falling onto his face.

"She ... doesn't bite ..."

Then Takeru was  _ there.  _ He didn't touch her—he seemed fearful of putting fingers onto her metal, as if he might be shocked—but his eyes were all over her, wandering from corner to corner, examining her face plate and hands and wheels. Roboppy must have felt like the centre of the universe by the way Takeru admired her. Yuusaku remembered when he and Kusanagi first built Roboppy and he had stared at her with silent wonder. She still was a special person to him. But he held in a chuckle as Takeru's face, so close to hers, fogged up the glass.

"Her name's Roboppy," he said, as clearly as he could.

Takeru smiled. "Nice to meet you, Roboppy. I'm Homura Takeru and I go to Den City Primary."

"I am Roboppy. My master is Kusanagi. My friend is Yuusa—"

"Yuu," Kusanagi cut in.

"My friend is ... Yuu," Roboppy finished. Behind Kusanagi's hands, Yuusaku could see him fiddling with his duel disk. He'd re-programmed Roboppy. She was as smart as her software, and it appeared she would need to relearn his name. Takeru was unfazed by the change. He peered down at the napkin in his hands once more, folding it and refolding it.

"You work at Cafe Nagi, you said ... Do you cook?"

"A bit." If cooking involved preparing breakfast and helping Kusanagi with prep work for Cafe Nagi, and sometimes behind-the-scenes preparations while the shop was in motion, then he cooked plenty. He cooked every day. But he didn't cook fancy food at a restaurant or gourmet hotdogs in a truck.

Takeru folded the napkin into a tight square and pressed it between his hands. "Because you see, I go to cooking class. You could come too, if you want. It's at the brown building, the big one with the grey roof and the trees out front. You could be in my class."

A cooking class. It didn't sound like school, unless Takeru was talking about a cooking day at his primary school. It also didn't sound like the sort of school Ryouken went to: the great, big university with lectures and professors and exams. He turned to Kusanagi and asked, "What's that?"

"A class where you learn how to cook. Say, Takeru, in your class, are there other kids?"

"All of us are kids," Takeru said in a proud, matter-of-fact way.

"I think I know what that is." He didn't elaborate though. Kusanagi took Yuusaku by the hand and said, "How about we go check it out right now? All right?"

The meaning was clear: _ it looks like you're ready to get away from other people.  _ And he was. As kind as Takeru was, he was someone new and energetic and nosy in ways Yuusaku hadn't experienced in a long, long time. He knew Ryouken, and he knew Kusanagi and Jin. But beyond that, he hadn't met another person since before the bad incident. Kusanagi never took him anywhere crowded and they never said hello to strangers. He wanted to call Takeru something besides stranger or strange boy, but he ... was.

He was kind though. Yuusaku could happily say that Homura Takeru of Den City Primary was kind.

"Are you going?" Takeru asked, licking crumbs from his fingers. "The snow might be gone tomorrow."

"It would be a miracle," Kusanagi said with a laugh. "But we'll come play another time. What do you think, Yuu?"

He nodded his head, then dipped it low. "See you."

"Bye-bye!" And just like a bullet, he shot back towards his grandfather on the bench. Even from across the park, Yuusaku could hear him talking to his grandfather, speaking so quickly the words weren't even words. He bounced from foot to foot, pointing behind him and then to his hands, likely telling the grandfather all about the cookies he'd eaten. Then, once more, Takeru spun on his heel and called back. "Bye, Yuu!"

Yuusaku waved goodbye as he headed out of the park and back down the trail. Kusanagi still held onto his hand, and Roboppy wheeled next to him. It hadn't snowed since they left, but he couldn't see the footprints he'd made on he walk over. It hadn't been long either. The clock on Roboppy's interface showed that only an hour had passed despite it feeling like the entire morning. Had he and Takeru spent so long building the palace? He'd lost track of time, caught up in the elaborate set-up and story.

Kusanagi bounced their hands up and down. "He was a nice boy."

"Mhm."

"I bet you were a little scared to meet him, but I'm glad he was so nice. It would be fun to play with him."

"Mhm." Yuusaku could even picture it: the two of them out in the sand, or the three of them if Ryouken came too, all digging and stacking and shaping and building. They'd build the largest, most magnificent snow sculpture that could win an award.

"And he was your age too," Kusanagi added.

Yuusaku held out six fingers. "But ... he goes to school ..."

Kusanagi didn't respond at once. "Well, nor ... Well ... When you're six, you get to go to school. But if something happens, something you can go to school later, or not at all." A pause. "Have you been thinking about school, Yuusaku?"

A thick swallow caught in his throat. "Ryouken goes to school."

"Well ..." Kusanagi was using that word more and more, like a place filler for some awkward topic. He could tell when Kusanagi wanted to avoid a topic. Jin never did—Jin was quiet but firm, and nothing Yuusaku had said or done had ever shaken him up. But Kusanagi would get flustered or sad or upset, and Yuusaku found himself regretting speaking the words.

"Ryouken doesn't really go to school either," Kusanagi said. "He goes to university with Jin. To get you into school, we'd need to ... to settle a few things first."

Oh.

"But." Kusanagi squeezed his hand. The tips of his boots were white with snow, and he kicked it up into the air to make a mini-storm. "If you want to go to school, Yuusaku, there might just be something we can do.”

"I don't."

Now Kusanagi's silence was  _ audible,  _ like a void coming to swallow up the entire city.

"You ... don't?"

"But ..." Yuusaku pulled at his fingers, tucked into his mittens, and then at his zipper. "But I'm six ..."

Six year olds went to school. They walked to school with their friends. They sat in classes in little desks and read books and played games and memorised kanji. Ryouken had told him all about what eight year olds did in school, so being six shouldn't have been much different. But he hadn't considered that  _ he  _ fit into that category—that group of kids who went to school—until he saw Takeru. Takeru went to school. Probably every other six year old in Den City went to school. But he ... he stayed home and read cookbooks.

He sniffled, burying deeper into his jacket.

Kusanagi stopped, pulling him close. Yuusaku leapt at the first contact, but Kusanagi  _ felt  _ familiar, like a teddy bear he'd had since birth or a blanket he'd slept with each night. A couple tears ran down his cheeks before he could brush them away, but Kusanagi only held him close.

"I'm six," Yuusaku tried again.

"But not all six year olds came out of ... of the Bad Room." Kusanagi brushed his hair back from his face. They shuffled through the snow to the side, where Kusanagi dropped down onto his bottom and tugged him onto his lap. They were out of the way of the path, even though, for the entire walk there and part of the way back, Yuusaku hadn't seen a single person. But being away from the path meant that he could tuck close and not worry about anyone watching him through the trees.

Kusanagi gave him another short squeeze and then spoke once more. "Those six year olds that are at school, they didn't have to run away from anyone. They didn't have any of those big fears. So it's not bad that you aren't in school. When you feel better, you can go—you and Ryouken both."

"Can we?" Yuusaku asked. When Ryouken had pleaded to Kusanagi to let him go to primary school, he'd been turned down. Yuusaku remembered hearing Ryouken's outbursts that night over having to stay indoors. He'd even run away one night. "Can we?"

"When you're both ready."

Oh. He had to be ready too. Yuusaku curled his knees up to his chest.

At once, Kusanagi's face fell. "What's wrong?"

"Ryouken can't go to school ... because of me?"

"Shit." Kusanagi swore often, but quietly. This one had been  _ loud,  _ or it was too quiet to even muffle words. "No, what I mean—" He was frantic again. Yuusaku's own heart hammered in his chest.

"What I mean," Kusanagi tried again, that there's still stuff I have to do, and Jin too. We've got some, uh, adult stuff. Not the bad kind, and certainly not stuff you need to worry about. But behind-the-scenes stuff."

There was still a vice in his chest. Yuusaku pressed his hand against his heart and breathed deeply.

"Look." Kusanagi paused, taking a deep breath as well, the sort of breath Yuusaku needed whenever he got overwhelmed too. "School is—school is a lot, Yuusaku. A lot of people and a lot of homework, and I don't think any of us—you, me, or Ryouken—are ready for that. It's something we need to look into first before we jump in unprepared. I'm sure Ryouken thinks he's prepared, and he might be, but there are things we need to do first. But." Kusanagi paused once more, and this time a small smile settled over his face. "What if there was something in between 'staying home with me' and 'going to primary school full-time?'"

Was there such a thing? Yuusaku asked, "Like what Ryouken does with Jin?"

"A bit ..." Kusanagi pulled them both to their feet and veered him down a sidestreet. Yuusaku hadn't been on it before, but it wasn't busy in the wintry weather. It led through a quaint, residential community with similarly-shaped houses with fences and gates out front, and a single tree in every front yard. Yuusaku almost missed the other building nestled between the homes. It was larger, and wasn't shaped like a house, but there was still something homey to its brick walls and glass door. An awning hung out from the entrance to shield the door. Attached to the exterior wall was a plexiglass-paned bulletin board with various advertisements inside. Yuusaku pulled himself onto his tiptoes to see.

"What's it say, Roboppy?"

Roboppy tilted her head to the bulletin board. "Den City South Community Centre."

"You can take classes here, the kinds of classes Takeru takes," Kusanagi said, tapping his fingers on the panes. "All sorts of classes: cooking, sewing, exercise. They even have some for kids too, so let's see here ..." Kusanagi pointed to various coloured ads, naming off an arts and crafts class, a science class, and a cooking class.

Yuusaku pressed his nose into the class to see the cooking one. "What's it say?"

"Beginner cooking for children. Caregivers welcome but not required for admission. 1000 yen per session. Please see calendar below for cooking schedule." Roboppy's eyes curved and she let out a happy trill. "Yuusaku, are you happy?"

"It's like school." It sounded like it, at least. A classroom with other children, and with a teacher to instruct him. Kusanagi would be able to come too. "What's cooking next time?"

"Blueberry muffins."

He could hear the smile in Kusanagi's tone as he said, "Does that sound fun to you?"

"Like school," Yuusaku said with a nod. "And you'd come ... right?"

"For the morning class, yes. We'll come here before we work, all right?"

"And the other kids?" Yuusaku swallowed back the worry in his voice. 

“There shouldn’t be many. I think these classes have, like, ten kids. Maybe even less. It’s drop in. And Takeru will be there, so you’ll know someone. This should be what he was talking about at the park.”

As uncertain as he felt, Yuusaku couldn’t stop staring at the ad. He cooked with Kusanagi every day. He talked with adults. He had made friends with Jin. And today, he talked to the new boy, Homura Takeru. If he could do that, going to cooking class would be no different. 

“Can Roboppy come?” he asked. Roboppy wouldn’t be able to cook, but just like at home and at Jin’s place, she’d be a stable presence for him to hold onto.

“I don’t see why not,” Kusanagi said. “I’ll make a phone call tonight and then we’ll go next week. Sounds like a plan?”

He couldn’t help but skip a little as he held tightly to Kusanagi and Roboppy’s hands, swinging them back and forth. 

Cooking class wouldn’t be like kindergarten. It wouldn’t be like school, though he didn’t know what school even entailed beyond what Ryouken had told him. Yet Yuusaku couldn’t wait to tell Ryouken about cooking class. He could wear a uniform, and his hat to cover his hair, and pretend he was going to class in the morning too. And he would be. Next week, he would go to cooking class.


	17. SEVENTEEN

The following day, Ryouken knew something was different. In fact, he knew something was different as of  _ yesterday afternoon  _ when he’d returned home from Jin’s apartment. There was an new aura in the room, weaving between Yuusaku and Kusanagi. This morning, both of them were at the counter cooking muffins; an impressive stack of cookies, baked yesterday, sat off to the side, some with chocolate chips and some without. Perhaps it was the delicious baking and the smell wafting round the truck. Perhaps it was the way Yuusaku stirred the batter in large motions. Or the song Kusanagi was humming under his breath, sliding his shoulders from side to side in an odd, standing-still jig.

"Are you hungry for breakfast now?” Kusanagi asked.

"We made muffins too." Yuusaku's voice was bubbly and warm, as it had been all of yesterday.

Ryouken pulled himself up to the counter. "Baking again?"

"We’re practicing," Kusanagi said. He smiled at Yuusaku who dipped his head down, cheeks reddening. Ryouken had seen Yuusaku embarrassed before: he didn't like to draw attention to himself, and he fretted when he made a mistake. But Yuusaku's blush was innocent, streaked across his nose and down to his curved lips. He was  _ smiling  _ about it.

Ryouken knelt down and peeked at Yuusaku, catching sight of his smile. “Practicing?"

Yuusaku tucked his chin even further to his chest. "I'm going to cooking class."

"Class?" Ryouken echoed. Yuusaku didn't like school. He'd never wanted to go either. And Kusanagi had told him that they wouldn't be going to a proper school for a long time. He raised his head, ready to ask Kusanagi just what Yuusaku meant, but he beat him to it.

"Cooking class at the rec centre—"

Oh.

"—we met someone at the park who goes to the same class."

Ryouken blinked in surprise. Met someone? Yuusaku didn't meet anyone either. The last person they had met had been Jin, and that had been back in autumn before the leaves left the trees bare and the snow tumbled from the sky. Since then, it had been the four of them. Ryouken had never thought about anyone new. Sure, he went to school, but that didn't count; Jin never talked to any of his classmates. Yuusaku couldn't talk to someone new. He still hid in the back of the truck and away from customers.

"Homura Takeru," Yuusaku said. "From Den City Primary."

"Homura ..."

"Takeru." Yuusaku was still smiling his shy little smile. He'd stopped mixing and held the spoon between his hands, his attention more focused on keeping the blush from spreading to his ears.

"How old is he?" Ryouken asked. He leant forward on the counters and braced himself with his forearms.

Yuusaku held up six fingers. "Same age as me."

A kindergartner then. Ryouken remembered the boys at the beach; they had all been his age or so, not kindergartners as short as Yuusaku. He tried to picture Takeru in his head—this new boy that Yuusaku had met at the park—but his mind drew a blank over just imagining Yuusaku saying hi to anyone.

"Does he know your name?" Ryouken blurted out.

This time, it was Kusanagi who jumped in. "He calls you 'Yuu.' It's best we don't use our real names, all right? Just like at university with Jin."

Ryouken swung his leg back and forth. Only one person had ever called him 'Satoru' since he started attending university. The teacher never called on him, and whenever students in the class mentioned him in passing, they referred to him as “Jin’s kid.”' As far as he knew, those students didn't even know he had a name.

A prickle of jealousy curled in his belly. He had gone to university for a month now, and to more than ten classes, and not once had he made a friend. Jin had told him to be wary of strangers, so he didn't talk to the other students or wander the halls. At the library, he read by himself or with Jin, and didn't join in for the puppet shows—not that he had wanted to on that day, but knowing that Yuusaku probably could have made his skin prickle. Yuusaku had made a friend. Not a friend to replace him with, not a friend who would become that special person, but just a friend. Not since leaving the house on the mountain had Ryouken made a friend.

Yuusaku was staring at him with a mixture of shyness and curiosity. Ryouken pulled himself up to full height and slapped on a smile.

"Do you think you'll play with Homura again?"

"At cooking class maybe," Yuusaku said in a whisper of a voice. He stirred the batter and began to spoon it into a lined muffin tray. Last but not least, he added the blueberries to the tops of half of the muffins. "This is what we're making next week."

"Can I come?" Ryouken asked. He didn't cook with Kusanagi every morning, often hurrying off to see Jin or sleeping in until breakfast. But he knew  _ how  _ to cook, and this was like school. In class, you learnt stuff.

His frown deepened when Kusanagi remained silent a moment too longer. The moment felt more like an hour.

"You'll go to class with Jin that day."

Ryouken pursed his lips together. The avoidance was obvious. "But what if I went to school with Jin on a different day?"

Kusanagi took the muffins and slipped them into the oven. Without the eye contact, Ryouken couldn't see what face he was making, but Kusanagi sounded flustered, the way he got when he couldn't explain a situation. "You and Jin go to school on that day, Ryouken. This is something for me and Yuusaku to do while you're gone."

_ But I want to go too.  _ He would have said it. Any other time, he would have. But Kusanagi's words, albeit flustered, were clear. This was something for the two of them to do. This was something only they could do. And Homura Takeru, the mysterious boy from the park, was going to be there too. Ryouken balled his hands in fists and breathed deeply through his nose. Getting upset would only lead to shouting and hurt feelings. He was mature enough to know that.

But still.

"Can I go to a class at the rec centre too?"

"Ryouken, you already go to classes." Kusanagi wiped bits of batter from his fingers with a cloth, still not looking at Ryouken. Yuusaku had begun carrying the dirty bowls and utensils to the sink to wash, but he was still listening. A hunch in his shoulders showed that he was anxious too. Ryouken knew better than to raise his voice or blow up the situation. He would only make Yuusaku upset. Yet he couldn't back down from Kusanagi's avoiding words.

"Can Jin take me to the rec centre then?"

"You'd have to ask him, but remember, he goes to school."

Carefully, Ryouken set his hands down on the counter. The granite was cool against his palms, and a faint dusting of flour coated the surface. "What if I didn't want to go to school anymore?"

Kusanagi turned to him. Ryouken could see properly that he'd spun Kusanagi's mind in frantic circles. He looked sweaty and tired and neither the bags under his eyes nor the sheen across his cheeks hid how he was truly feeling. "Ryouken," Kusanagi said, in the sort of quiet, careful tone adults used when they wanted to make a point, "Yuusaku is going to this class because he can't go to university with you and Jin. You both wanted to go to school, and I've talked to both of you about how I can make it work. This is the result. You go to school with Jin, and Yuusaku goes to cooking class with me."

"But—" Ryouken bit down on his tongue as he spotted Yuusaku standing in the hallway. Gone was his shy smile and pink cheeks. He looked far too much like the Yuusaku who holed himself up in the bedroom and refused to greet the day. Like the Yuusaku who cried in the library when he'd first left the house on the mountain. Like the Yuusaku who couldn't trust anything or anyone. Hot shame burned Ryouken's neck and he closed his mouth at once.

"Ryouken?"

"Fine," he said through his teeth. "I can go to class with Jin."

And without another word, he stomped back into the bedroom and flopped onto the sheets. His ears remained pricked for any footsteps following him, but after a moment longer, he heard Roboppy say to Yuusaku, "Remember, the muffins must cool for five minutes before being removed from the tray," and he knew that they wouldn't come looking for him. They were busy cooking. Yuusaku and Kusanagi had their own routine—a dance of cooking and baking, stirring and chopping. He and Jin had their own routine.

He reached under his pillow and pulled out the textbook Jin had lent him. It was full of complicated words and lengthy descriptions, but the pictures inside were detailed diagrams of the brain, its hemispheres, and its regions. He could name the regions off by heart, and for some of them, he knew its function. Jin had been quizzing him on the material with flash cards or memory games. In a way, he imagined that primary school would have had the same games and exercises. He  _ was  _ going to school.

But, if he was honest with himself, being the only kid in university was sad. There were no kids like Homura Takeru of Den City Primary who he could befriend. There were no games or activities in the university lecture hall, just tiny chairs and tinier desks, and hundreds of tired adults carrying heavy books.

Down the hall came the clatter of utensils and dishes. He didn’t like cooking. He liked going to school. But he didn’t want to go to school today.

The bed shifted as Kusanagi sat down on the mattress. Ryouken didn’t raise his head. He didn’t have to know what Kusanagi looked like to hear the frustration in his tone.

“Ryouken?”

“I’ll go to class with Jin today.”

Kusanagi sighed deeply through his nose. “I thought you liked going to school with Jin. Has something changed?”

“No.”

“If you won’t talk to me about it, will you talk to Jin?”

What was there to talk to Jin about? Both adults had been perfectly clear that they couldn’t make friends. They kept them in the van or the apartment, and when Ryouken did go to school, there were clear rules about staying close and remaining anonymous. What had changed with Yuusaku that Kusanagi had broken that rule? Jin would never let him.

“Are you up to going to class—”

“Yes,” Ryouken said through his teeth. He pulled himself off the bed and stomped to the bathroom. In the mirror, his face was twisted into a snarl, but his eyes were watery and droopy. He scrubbed them with his sleeve before he brushed his teeth and hair. By the time he was dressed, Jin had stepped into the van. He stood by the doorway, talking eagerly to Yuusaku about the muffins. Ryouken hung back as he heard Jin say, “Oh, you’re going to cooking class? Won’t that be a treat in more ways than one.”

Jin, Yuusaku, and Kusanagi all laughed like it was the greatest joke.

With a push of added force, Ryouken slammed the bathroom door closed. It roused Jin’s attention, but the only person it startled was Yuusaku who nearly dropped the muffin he’d been nibbling on. Ryouken marched across the van and tugged on his shoes. “I’m ready to go.”

Jin gave a short nod and adjusted the thick, wool scarf round his neck. “That’s good. It snowed last night, so it’ll take some time getting to the train station.”

“We can’t take the car?” 

“Too expensive to park on campus.” Jin let out a short, dry laugh and pulled up his hood. “Besides, some people might say it’s a beautiful day.” Outside, another three or four inches of snow had dropped from the sky, and more was still falling in thick, heavy flakes. The narrow path snaking through the plaza had begun to disappear, and the streets, while paved, were bordered by tall snow piles. Only the sea remained untouched.

“Some people might stay inside today,” Kusanagi said, peering through the doorway.

Under his breath, Jin muttered, “Some people  _ wish  _ they could stay inside today.” But he recovered quickly and stepped into the deep snow. “Come along, Ryouken.”

Even where the snow had been brushed away, it was up to his knees in spots. He had to yank his leg out of the snow and step, and the effort soon became grueling. Snowflakes caked the top of his hood no matter how often he brushed them away. Jin was bundled up for an Arctic exploration. For the first few minutes, neither of them said a word until they made it onto a clearer, well-paved path that led directly to the train station.

“Did you bake with Kusanagi and Yuusaku today? I smelt those heavenly blueberry muffins.”

“No,” Ryouken answered, tucking his hands into his sleeves.

“Ah. And what did you do today then?”

“... read.”

“What do you think of the new book I lent you?”

It was difficult to read without Jin’s assistance, and he didn’t dare ask Roboppy for help. He spent most of the time looking at the pictures. However, the thought of the book left a sour taste in his mouth.

Jin never asked him to follow up the question. They lapsed into awkward silence, Ryouken dragging his feet through the snow and Jin trying his hardest to stay warm. When they stepped onto the train platform, Ryouken took a seat on one of the benches. Jin sat down next to him, fiddling with the loose threads of his mittens.

“Are you coming down with a cold? You’re quieter today.”

“‘M not.”

“Is there something on your mind then?”

Ryouken chewed at his lip, waiting for Jin to say more. But unlike Kusanagi who would babble to fill the silence, Jin reveled in it. He never spoke up to just ‘saying something.’ He was calculated. Careful. A proper doctor or psychologist or psychology doctor. 

“Can we go to the rec centre after class?”

Jin tilted his head up; the clear roof prevented the snow from toppling on their heads, but above them, Ryouken could see a solid layer had formed.

“Not today,” Jin answered. “But what would you like to do at the rec centre?”

_ Go to class  _ was the obvious answer, but he didn’t know what class he wanted to attend other than the cooking class Yuusaku and Kusanagi would go to next week. There were bound to be other classes like crafts and gym; the sort of activities you would do in school. But he hadn’t thought about any such activities until Jin asked. Kusanagi hadn’t asked; he’d only said no. Ryouken hunched forward and drew his hands to his face.

“I just want to go there.”

“I bet it would be a fun place to check out. Do you know what sorts of things happen at the rec centre?”

“Classes.”

Jin gave a soft a-ha, though whether in response to Ryouken’s words, or at the sight of the silver bullet train pulling into the station, he didn’t know. He and Jin headed into the train car. Ryouken sat down on one of seats, and Jin stood in front of him, holding onto one of the overhead bars. 

“And which classes interest you?”

The question drew him from staring at his hands. Ryouken balled them into fists and slipped them further into his sleeves. “I don’t know.”

“You just wanted to check it out …”

“Because it looked like … like school.”

Jin’s feet tapped on the wet train floor, a steady one-two rhythm. “Maybe next time we can check it out and see.”

“Kusanagi said no.” The words slipped out like air between his dry lips. Jin said nothing. “Kusanagi said I have to go to school with you.”

Through his bangs, Jin looked a touch surprised. He slipped off his hood and crouched down to Ryouken’s height. “What did he say today?”

“That I have to go to school with you.”

“Did he perhaps mean that you couldn’t change your mind today?”

Ryouken shook his head. “He said I can’t go any time because … because Yuusaku already goes there. Yuusaku goes to school with Kusanagi now, and they’re going to bake cakes and muffins. He said I have to go to school with you.”

The surprised look had long since gone from Jin’s face, replaced by a calm, contemplative fold of his lips. He waited until Ryouken had finished before he spoke. “Would you like to check out the rec centre on another day? I can speak to my brother about taking you to classes—it wouldn’t be much trouble at all.”

But as soon as Jin spoke, Ryouken felt his stomach curl in a new, albeit painful, way. That didn’t sound right either. He didn’t want to cook; he liked cooking with Kusanagi and Yuusaku, and he liked cooking with Jin when he made Yuusaku’s favourite bread or scones. But a class dedicated to cooking and baking didn’t appeal to him in the slightest, and neither did crafts or sports. It had before, somehow. At one point that was a good idea. Yet now that Jin had offered, Ryouken wanted to turn back time and never ask the question.

“Ryouken? Is cooking class something you’d be interested in?”

He pressed his lips together, feeling heat run across his face.

“Or was there something else you wanted to do at the rec centre?”

_ Stop talking,  _ he wanted to say.  _ Stop it all. _

And Jin didn’t speak. Not a word. He remained crouched in front of Ryouken, ever patient. Bits of melted snow slipped off his jacket and collected in various puddles on the ground. His own jacket was damp and sticky; he wished he could pull it off and walk with bare arms in the wintry weather.

“What is it about the rec centre that you really like? You were talking with such passion before, and now you’ve grown quiet.”

His body folded like a toy without its stuffing. Ryouken hung his head and smushed his bangs down over his eyes. “Why can’t I make friends at your school?”

“What do you mean?” Jin asked. He had the audacity to remain calm. Ryouken turned his head towards the window so he didn’t have to look at anything but the rolling cityscape.

“You don’t talk to anyone in class and I don’t either, and you and Kusanagi don’t want me to talk to anyone or else they’ll find out.” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Jin’s gaze flicker to the window too.

“I’m sorry I didn’t introduce you to anyone in my class.”

A blink.

“You see, I’m not too familiar with them myself. I, uh, don’t talk to them at class, or even outside of school. It’s not that I don’t like them, but …” Jin brushed at his bangs. “I didn’t consider if you would have wanted to chat with them, and I imagine my own shyness must have come across that neither of us could make friends. I apologise for that.”

Ryouken kept his gaze out the window, but he did feel a sliver of guilt over Jin’s crestfallen expression.

“Would you like me to introduce you to someone today?”

“No.”

Jin blinked.

“I want a friend  _ my age.”  _ Like Homura Takeru was to Yuusaku. 

He didn’t have to piece together  _ why  _ he wanted a friend, but Jin seemed to understand all the same. 

“Ah. That makes sense. Then how about we both think about where there might be kids your age—at the park, at the rec centre, those sorts of places. We’ll think about it today, and then perhaps on the weekend you and I can go meet someone.”

He didn’t have the words to say. Had it been so easy? Could Jin just introduce him to someone else? He  _ wanted  _ it with all his heart, but deep down he’d thought he was being whiny. Jin’s kind words pushed that thought away.

The train pulled to a stop at the station. Ryouken followed Jin back out into the cold, and together they walked down the mushy, snowy trail to the university. The campus had been paved much more efficiently than the roads, resulting in clear paths leading to all the buildings and out to the car parks. It was still snowy and frosty, and never before had he seen the campus so quiet. There wasn’t a person in sight.

Jin shivered as he stepped into the doorway. The halls were empty too, and most of the classroom doors were closed. Ryouken peered round each of the corridors. Normally this hallway was packed with students waiting for their lessons. The lobby chairs would be full and occasionally students would nap on the couches.

“Where is everyone?” he asked aloud.

Jin stopped at the closed classroom door. Ryouken tried the handle, but no amount of jiggling made it budge.

A slow, weary sigh escaped Jin’s lips. “Should have known,” he muttered under his breath, and he dropped his hands at his sides.

Standing up on his tiptoes, Ryouken tried to read the sign taped to the door. Some of the kanji was too difficult, and without the furigana he was lost on even  _ pronouncing  _ the word, but he recognised the word “no.”

_ No classes. _

His shoulders slumped forward as if laden with heavy weights. 

Jin crouched down next to him. “You read the sign too, huh?”

“No classes,” Ryouken recited. He glanced back up at the sign, and then down the empty corridor. “What do you do then?”

“Hm …” Rather than grumble, Jin scratched at his chin. “I don’t want to brave the weather home quite yet, so we could go to the library here. Classes are cancelled but the building itself might be open—after all, we did get through the lobby.”

The campus library was two buildings down from Jin’s classes, in a large, stone building with glass windows on the upper floors. Ryouken had been in it before, but it was always full of students sitting at desks or on clusters of chairs, with stacks of research books and novels at their sides. The upper floors were known for quiet study, but the first and second floors had cafes and study group areas; it was usually lively at this time of day. Today, only one other person was on the first floor. They gave Ryouken and Jin a tired, understanding sort of smile; they too must have to come to campus only to realise classes had been cancelled.

As soon as he was indoors, Ryouken unzipped his jacket and carried it in his hands. “Can we stay here for a while?” he asked Jin.

“Gladly,” Jin said with a laugh. He kept his jacket zipped up to his chin and his scarf wrapped tightly round his neck. “If you’d like, you’re free to explore one of the library floors. I think I’ll just read for a bit.”

Ryouken spotted the large map on the way. It labelled each of the floors and the books found on it. “Which floors has books with robots in it?”

“Robots?” Jin echoed. “Like Roboppy?”

“Yeah.”

Jin pointed to the third floor and then led the way up the stairs. Even the stairwells were silent. On each floor, Ryouken poked his head into the main area to see if anyone else was sitting around and reading. On the second floor he found no one, and on the third floor there were only books on the table: nature books from two floors above. Someone must have carried them down.

Jin shivered as he settled down onto one of the couches. From within his messenger bag he took out two paperback novels, their covers hidden by brown paper. Ryouken left his damp jacket next to Jin as he set off to explore the third floor. Twice he’d been to the library, but never to this area; he and Jin had always gone to the upper levels for psychology reference texts or journal articles. Still, the books were shelved on the same metal bookcases and bore the same stickers on their spines. Ryouken trailed his fingers over each of the covers. These were adult books. Some of the bottom-most books had pictures on their covers and within their pages: diagrams of building robots and the parts used within them. They looked similar to the parts Kusanagi kept somewhere in the truck, the ones he had used to build Roboppy.

He slipped the book under his arm and went down the next aisle.

There, seated on the floor, was a boy. A boy his age perhaps, with hair as white as his and eyes even bluer. He had his nose in a book with plants on the cover, even though that very book couldn’t have come from this floor. 

Ryouken felt his mouth drop open like an old trap. “Hey—”

“Oh.” The boy looked up from his book. “I didn’t know anyone else came to school today.”

To—to school? This boy couldn’t have been a university student no matter how smart he was. He couldn’t just be short either. Ryouken hugged the book to his chest, forcing himself to remain calm and even. 

“You go to this school too?” he said, lifting his chin as he spoke.

The boy smiled, teeth hidden by thin, pale lips. “I doubt you go to university. I’m only eight anyways; I’m just here until my uncle picks me up.”

“Uncle?”

“He’s a university teacher.” Tucking the book under his arm, the boy added, “The name’s Spectre.”

“Spectre …”

“Just Spectre.”

Ryouken crossed his arms over his chest. “Satoru … I’m here with my uncle too.”

“Hm.” Spectre craned his head to the side. Ryouken held the book out for him, cover up. He couldn’t read the title, but on the front were lines upon lines of code that Kusanagi often had on his computer screen. “What are you reading?”

“Robots.”

“But that’s a book on computers.” He spoke clearly, a bit bluntly. Ryouken felt his cheeks heat up and he tucked the book under his arm. Before he could turn around, Spectre spoke up again: “If you want a book on robots, I can show you where they are. I’ve been in this library before.”

“So have I,” Ryouken muttered, but he followed Spectre down the aisle and to three bookcases over. These covers, while many of them were blank or printed with just titles and authors, did have robots on them. Spectre plucked several volumes from the shelves and began passing them back to Ryouken. Each volume weighed more than a bag of apples, and soon his arms were weighed down by  _ five  _ bags worth of apples. 

Spectre stood up and dusted off his hands, looking all the while pleased with himself. “Would that be enough?”

“Plenty,” Ryouken said round a groan. He nearly dropped one trying to shift his arms into a better position. Again, he prepared himself to turn, when he caught himself—or, his mind caught him. If there was another boy in the library, then he’d found someone. A kid his age. The Homura Takeru that  _ he  _ could befriend and go to classes with. Down the hall, Ryouken could hear Jin gently turning his book pages. There was still time left.

“What are you reading?”

Spectre raised an eyebrow, then shrugged and held the book up for him to see. He had seen the plants, but upon closer inspection, he noticed they were flowers: an entire book on the local flora in Den City, neatly compiled with pictures and descriptions. Oddly enough, the book reminded him of a textbook that students might bring to class; the kanji was complicated enough for a university level as Ryouken could only pick out individual kanji instead of stringing them together into a proper word or sentence.

“The Changing Seasons of Den City’s Local Flora,” Spectre said.

Ryouken blinked when he realised that was the title of the book.

“You can read it?” He tried to keep the incredulousness from his tone. Failed too.

“It’s not too difficult,” Spectre said with a shrug, flipping through the pages. He paused at a photograph of a large, blue flower. The petals burst in tight clusters, making the flower look more like a ‘flower-bush.’  _ “Hydrangea macrophylla  _ belongs to the—”

“Let me see.” He couldn’t even tell what page Spectre had been reading from. He recognised the flower, but there were three distinct sections about it, and none of them looked like whatever word Spectre had spouted out. He sounded like Jin when he named off areas of the brain or the chemicals within it. 

Spectre held the book out for him, still smiling.

Three frustrating attempts at reading one of the lines later, Ryouken leaned back with a huff. 

“So if you don’t go to school here,” he said to Spectre, “then where do you go?”

Spectre picked at the the white collar of his undershirt; for a cold, wintry day, he was dressed warmly with a green sweater overtop. “I’m home-schooled. You?”

“Home … schooled.” It was close enough, but a wiggle of pride in his chest pushed him to add, “But I go to psychology class here too.”

“Oh!” Spectre’s eyes sparkled like stars on moonlit water. “I just come to the library to see my uncle and read books. But I’ve never seen you before …”

“I don’t come to the library,” Ryouken said. He adjusted the heavy tomes in his arms, feeling the weigh more and more on his limbs and back. Spectre reached out to take some of the volumes from him; but instead of setting them down, he carried them further down the halls and towards one of the small clusters of tables and comfy chairs. Ryouken glanced over his shoulder to see if Jin had come looking for him. He hadn’t—but if he were truly worried, he would have. Ryouken dropped the books onto the round coffee table and sunk into the sleek, leather chair. 

Spectre set each volume down one by one, examining them with a keen eye. Ryouken kept an eye on the titles too. Some of those he’d ask Jin if he could take home later, and in the back of his mind, he thought of searching for a new cookbook for Yuusaku. A book with recipes from another country perhaps, or one with recipes good for picnics and hikes. 

“How come you go to psychology classes?” Spectre asked him.

“I like it.” Simple, to the point.

“Are you too smart for normal classes?” 

He’d never been asked  _ that  _ before, not even when he  _ was  _ home-schooled by Father. 

“I guess,” Ryouken said then. “Are you too smart for regular school too?”

“Yes.” Spectre’s smile stretched across his face. “I’ve read all the books in my house, even the adult ones. I can read textbooks like this.”

Ryouken’s gaze shifted to the pile of psychology textbooks. “What about those ones?”

“Which ones?”

“My books. Can you read those ones?” He expected Spectre to brush him off. But instead, Spectre reached across the table and plucked the top book from the tower. He flipped through the pages, humming and hahing at various diagrams. Curiously, Ryouken wandered over to his seat. He could read singular words on the page: brain, memory, emotion, cognition. But only Jin knew how to tie them together. He would read the page aloud for Ryouken, much like how Roboppy read Yuusaku his cookbooks.

Spectre raised his fist to his mouth and cleared his throat. “Judgement is the evaluation of evidence to make a decision—”

He could read it.

He read the page aloud, not as clearly as Jin, and stopping in pages to consider a particular word. But he understood most of it—or at least, more than Ryouken understood. He trailed his finger across the lines he was reading. Ryouken leaned closer, trying to follow where Spectre’s finger was at the same time as he spoke a new word aloud.

Wisdom.

Discernment.

Fact.

Personality.

“Personality?”

“Personality judgment.” Spectre looked up from the book with eyes full of wonder. Kusanagi always told him he looked ‘full of wonder’ when he read, like he was a sponge soaking up all the information about the world. But he couldn’t imagine every looking as bright-eyed as Spectre. “Your opinions on other people. How you see them, how you judge them. That sort of thing.”

Ryouken leaned closer, searching for a diagram.

“Like.” Spectre paused for dramatic effect, raising one digit into the warm air. “When I first met you, I already had formed opinions. You’re confident. You’re brave. You tend to stay away from others and not want to be their friends.”

“So you assumed this about me?”

“Of course. Didn’t you make assumptions, or judgements, about me too?”

“Not like that,” Ryouken said with a huff. He pressed against the arm of the chair; bits of Spectre’s white hair brushed against his chin. “How’d you learn to read this book?”

“I guessed.”

“... huh?”

Spectre laughed outright—had the  _ gall  _ to laugh outright, his voice bouncing round the room. “I don’t know all these words,” he said between giggles, “but I  _ do  _ know most of them. So I read the ones that I know, and later on I’ll read the rest. Like so.” From within his pocket he pulled out a small, round device. Ryouken nearly leapt out of his seat. Kusanagi had a duel disk like that, and while he’d grown accustomed to its place on the back desk, or tucked away in one of the cabinets, Ryouken didn’t like it. It … talked.

“Do you have a duel disk? We could share IDs.”

“I don’t,” he said, and then more clearly, “I don’t want one.”

Spectre only shrugged. “It’s got a nice search tool for when you don’t know a word, and a camera if you need to remember a note or a good sight.”

“I don’t want one,” Ryouken said again. Any minute now the duel disk would  _ talk  _ and it would be like a creepier Roboppy. He had only just gotten used to one AI wandering round the house, talking to Yuusaku like she was a human being. But a device with a  _ camera?  _ That could listen in on you? Even he was smart enough not to trust an AI like that. He watched Spectre hold his duel disk over the page to scan the complicated kanji. The results appeared on a holographic screen above.

“It’s handy,” Spectre said.

“I don’t like it.”

“Suit yourself.” With a click, Spectre closed the device and slipped it back into his corduroys’ pocket. “Can I give you my ID then? To give to your uncle?”

“Why?”

“So I can see you again.”

Ryouken felt the air whoosh from his lungs. This boy, this stranger—wanted to see him again? He would be at the university, sure, but with an ID he could contact him.

“I don’t know if he’ll let me..”

“Ask then. Besides, I doubt I’ll ever find you if this library is jam-packed.”

Still Ryouken couldn’t find the words to say. Did Yuusaku feel like this when he met Homura Takeru? When he met Ryouken? Ryouken himself had spent all his days with adults, but meeting Yuusaku had been different. They were friends for a day, then months later on the run. Spectre was just a boy though. A boy his age who liked to read books and had a duel disk and also had a family member at the university. He wasn’t  _ normal,  _ but that made him better.

“Here.” Spectre passed him a handwritten note with a series of numbers on it. “That’s my disk ID. Give it to your uncle and he’ll know what to do. All right?” He rose from his seat, tucking his book under his arm. “Good to meet you …”

“Satoru,” Ryouken said. A sour taste lingered on his tongue, wishing he could say his name. His proper name. 

“See you, Satoru.” 

Ryouken watched him go until he was out of sight, round the corner and down the stairs. His gaze fell down to the dozens of books he and Spectre had picked out. It would have taken them  _ days  _ to read through each of them, and even a full day just to browse and look at pictures. Still, he memorised the ones he wanted to read next time he was at the library, and took one book to have Jin check out.

Back at the seating area by the stairs, Jin was still reading his book. He’d managed to complete half of it, and he slipped his finger between the pages as Ryouken approached.

“Find one to check out? What’s it called?”

Ryouken squinted. “Personality Judgement.” There were more kanji on the cover, but those didn’t matter. Proudly, he added, “Your opinions on other people, like how you see them and how you judge them.”

Jin  _ glowed  _ in the afternoon sun. “Sounds like you found yourself a tutor,” he said, in the same, knowing sort of voice Kusanagi used too. Only this time, Ryouken felt himself glow too.

“A boy my age,” Ryouken said. He hugged the book to his chest. “I want to come back to the library another day.”

He  _ swore  _ he saw Jin’s simpering smile. “Would you like to go to the library after class on some days?”

A nod.

“Very well. And would you like to do that instead of go to classes at the rec centre?”

“Yes.”

“Let’s head back and tell Kusanagi then.” Jin rose and passed him his jacket, still damp from the snow. Out the window, the world was still white, wintry, and frosty. Yet he could see a clear line of footprints in the snow. Someone had walked home in great, confident strides that sunk deep holes into the fallen snow. “I’m sure he’ll be quite excited to hear about this new idea.”

**Author's Note:**

> if you have any questions or comments, or just want to say hello, come poke me on tumblr at [lily-liegh](https://lily-liegh.tumblr.com/ask) :3  
> also leave a comment if you'd like - i love answering questions and expanding on theories, and i'd love to hear your thoughts! <3


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